June 2016

A, If it is you:

If it  you, I want you to know that Im sure I love you very much,
Thousands of miles away, but through words I assure you I am touched

And it seems so innocent, the way we both choose to try and love,
and maybe it's soon to say romantically,
because its only been two months.

But I do love you as a friend, and I love you for who you are-
So if I fall in love with you, know that I have loved you from the start
and I'm learning-
learning to be patient
and learning to open up
learning to pour into you,
learning for you I have been enough

I am so thankful for your giving heart,
Im so thankful that you are weird,
I am thankful that you eat grandpa cereal,
and quite frankly cannot grow a beard.

I am thankful that you are snarky,
And that you cannot cook like me,
I am thankful that you like the outdoors,
Im thankful you love being free.

I am so happy that you are good at whatever it is you choose to do,
I love that you hate running- because I do it and hate it too.

I love that I met you at work,
I love that we did the same job-
Because then we had something to talk about through the months
when we avoided the fact that you were gone.

I like that your eyes are blue, I like that you use to write,
I hope to see the journal one day
that you scribble into at night.

If it is you Im happy i did.
I am happy I let myself open.
Cause you're one of the best friends I have made this year,
and for a short time you have been the best boyfriend.

And maybe we break up in a month, or maybe we see this one through-
but in the case that you are reading this:
I think it is apparent:

It is you.

(Written June 2016)
I love you, my husband.

The Fixer

You don't mean me, do you?

When you're talking to your friends,
How your children are the start and end of every good thing about you.

Not me.
Not me that changed your world,
Not me who's absence hurts,
Not me you notice missing in the masses and the herds,

You don't notice who I am or the uniqueness that I hold,
because while what makes me different is in a hardened shell,
They sparkle and they're gold.

They make it hard for you, I suppose thats why chasing won't get old,
They are angry and frustrated
To you, their hearts have chosen cold,

You don't mean me, do you-
when you say we once are strong,
that you miss where we started,
that you know that you've done wrong

NOT me that you're apologizing to,
Cause how dare I feel offended,
when I was the ONLY one who looked past your choices,
I forgave you that decision and I meant it.

I do the work that they choose to ignore,
Stood by you when you walked out the door,
And i get it, Ive been there- closer than any other of your kids,
But if I had the choice to choose sides I still would have chosen his,

But I loved you through the hurt,
I loved you when it was hard
and even through the darkness,
I helped you while ignoring my own scars

I talked to your kids of forgiveness,
I pushed them to reconsider,
When their hearts were turned against you,
I begged of them- forgive her.

I dealt with family calls,
I death with a broken home,
I fixed the things no one wanted to touch,
because I knew what things had to be done.

I was there, they weren't. I suppose I am still the one that tries-
I guess that is why who you miss at night is my brother and sister
Not I.

So forgive me if I choose I need to go,
forgive me if I think i deserve more,
Because after all of you are done,
It is finally my turn to walk out the door.

None of you have asked how its been for me,
I assume none of you have a clue.
So for all the shit you've put each other through-
You don't mean me, do you?

Spoken Word: Letter from buried heartbreak.

You think it is over and done?

You think because after 18 years of constant heartbreak,
Your acknowledgment of prior ignorance diminishes the damage you've already caused?

It doesn't work like that.

You think 18 years of never being enough can ever be followed by suddenly feeling worth something?
Let me say its not.
The place where your words put me years ago,
Thats the place where I've been caught.

If I am not beautiful "yet",
Not thin enough "yet",
Not good enough "yet",
Let me ask, will I ever be?

You like a good project, but I'm not a project.
Where is your empathy?
Its not with me.

I was a kid.
Your kid.
I let your ideologies define me.
They blinded me.
I couldn't see.

Maybe, I still can't.

You see, they say my brothers my mothers favorite,
and father, my sisters your angel.
Cant talk about your worthless daughter,
No I suppose that'd be far too painful.

I do matter.

It doesn't end when you realize that you must have said enough,
The words that you've forgotten,
I can never let go of.

And it hurts.
To know you're valued less than the siblings that you love,
And it hurts that your parents ignore it,
While no one else does.

And it sucks to be successful, to make your own name,
and show off to a family that is unimpressed all the same.

And it HURTS to hear the whispers telling me
"Im just to sensitive"
Cause I don't feel a damn thing anymore
And its all because of this;

Because you took away my acceptance of everything I am.
You took away my ability to love, trust or understand.

Its not done.
Its still growing.
It gets worse every day.
Because the longer it weighs on my heart,
the more Im bathed in shame.

Like Im to blame.

But i was a kid.
Your kid.
I deserved a bit of protection.
The things you all thought were okay to say,
Are tattooed in my mind,
I can't forget them.

You've changed the way I feel things,
You've changed whats in my heart,
I don't believe anyones kind words,
They're rubbed dry with mud and starch.

I don't have confidence in my beauty,
I hit the gyms way too hard,
Im good at many things,
But I can only see my faults.

I joke about insecurities because i feel like its all I have to offer.
Like my siblings are your gold and silver.
Ill only ever be your copper.

You said its middle child syndrome, But there is nothing generic about how i feel.
I don't feel like I've lost opportunities to others.
I feel like I'm hurt, and cannot heal.

I feel like I'm fighting for a love that I thought should have been handed free,
I don't feel like I'm jealous of them,,
Im feel like I'm striving for me.

There is no center child illness I've taken,
No way to reverse what pains won.
TO have the audacity to tell me its over- don't you dare tell me its done.

Its still here. Its still prying
Every damn time I look in a mirror.
Wanna talk about something truly scary?
Lets talk for a moment about my fear.

It prevails.
Over everything that I ever want to do.
It covers me in second thoughts and it suffocates the truth.

Your words may not have seemed so big when they escaped your mouth,
But your the only person I looked up to.
So your truths are the only ones I found.

And Im sorry. I know its unfair
To put all this on you now.
I may be a warrior,
But those whispers follow me around

They don't leave.
Don't let me be.
They grow each passing day.

The seed you didn't mean to plant
is with me. Always.

So no.
Its not over.
So no.
It can never be done.

The comparisons you've written
are stained on me in blood.

-TJ

The drill

In high school, I remember sitting at a wooden, cracked desk in the middle of a plain white room with plain white walls. 

Other students to my left and right, all giggling with eachother about their crushes and weekend plans. I remember the teacher scratching something across a white board.. Maybe it was about math? Maybe Spanish?

I don't remember that.

Suddenly a loud announcement comes over the intercom telling everyone that the school is in lock down. Nothing elaborate was shared, just a quick reminder that we were not to panic and were to act as practiced in the drills. 

But this was not a drill.

This we were not prepared for.

It is interesting how concepts of such amateur size can relate to such significant ideas .

In life's ups and downs, I have never- not even once- been even slightly prepared for one of life's curve balls.

It's just like those drills. We practice how it will be, and call it good.

But can you ever really be sure of how something will be? 

Can you be sure of how something will play out, or feel?

Can you be sure of how you will handle the problem, or how you will think, or what you will see, or what you will have to do?

You can't.

That's it. You can't.

The cold, hard reality of it is this-

We don't know where we are going to end up, or who we will meet, or what we will do. 

We can only make educated guesses on other peoples true intentions or feelings, an we sure as hell cannot be completely prepared for other peoples actions.

We don't know what God has in store, we don't know what the earth has in store, we don't know what other countries  have in store, we don't know what terrorists have in store...

So what do we know?

We know ourselves. 

We understand our own intentions, our own interests. And, generally, we protect them. 

We know what we want. We fight for it- we have to.

We know what we have seen, and heard, and felt- 

We know what we have learned.

I guess, ultimately, there is a concept here; that preparing to go through something is never the same actually going through it.

And you can have your "drill" every day of the week as still be unprepared for the lock down.

So let's leave that metaphor behind for a moment. In the real world- how do you overcome these "curveballs" if not by preparation?

By strength. 

Strength is a powerful thing, for obvious reasons.

It protects us.

It drives us.

It shapes us.

It defines us.

It builds us.

It defeats us.

And the list goes on. 

We use these strengths, and in the midst of that lockdown that we are unprepared for, we fight by these strengths. We use what we know, who we are, and what we are capable of to move forward.

My world was shaken by news recently.

In the past, I thought to myself all the things I WOULD do if ever I was in this situation .

Now that it is my life-

I have yet to do any of them.

I am not capable of action on practice towards something that has destroyed my world. I'm not capable of simply just doing the lock down as instructed without panicking, without fear.

But I am strong.

I'm strong enough to push through.

I'm strong enough to know I'm not alone.

I'm strong enough to see the big picture,

And even though I don't know how, quite yet- I'm strong enough to make it through this lock down.

The great thing is; though drills may not help, making it through this actual "lockdown"- this actual circumstance makes the next "lockdown" and the next problem a lot less scary. 

I'm stronger.

I'll keep getting stronger. 

And eventually, I won't need drills- or false claims of stability.

I'll be able to use my experience and strength and move forward to the next huge announcement. 

******

A loud beep comes over the intercom.

Everyone is quiet to hear the instructions- I look down my left then to my right as we all huddle in the corner of the dark classroom. 

Some of us are crying-

Some of us shaking.

There is the dim light of a cell phone to my immediate right as someone texts their parents of the emergency, of the earth shattering threat. 

While waiting for the voice over the intercom, my heart rate speeds. My breath becomes uneven, and my hands begin to shake. 

A great friend of mine sits next to me, grabs my shoulder in reassurance as he says "we have got this."

I nod, looking over to him and reassuring him as well. 

Crackling comes over the speaker.

" students and teachers, the threat has been contained. You are free to continue your class, emails will be sent shortly. The campus is safe"

We smile. Pick ourselves up off the ground, grab our things- wipe our tears, gather our nerve and continue on. 

We can do better .

It's a concept.

An idea that has been mentioned time and time again, yet doesn't catch on or doesn't keep rolling... but stops.

Dead in its tracks.

Four days ago, I left work two hours early, headed to go meet my aunt so we could drive up to Phoenix and catch a plane with my mother to San fransisco .

After months of training for a 50k, my mother and aunt needed what support they could afford and I, being cheapest and most available, was a shoe-in for the job. (They got a baby sitter and portable entertainment in one!) 

It was a simple enough gig. I remember replaying the expectations in my head as I boarded the plane heading out. 

-Take care of them.

-Give them everything they want. 

-Fill baths with ice before they get back from race.

-Drive them wherever when their legs hurt. 

-Be at the finish line when they complete their 30 miles

-drive back to Tucson on Sunday night (Monday morning)

The list goes on, but the rules were simple. I was to do what they needed, WHATEVER they needed, and my trip would remain free.

Easy enough.

I sat down next to the window on the opposite side of my aunt as the flight attendant began her monologue of proper emergency etiquette . " Thank you for flying with... If happens...pull this. If... Push that. Help yourself first.".

I have heard the speech a million times over, so it was easy to disregard as I popped in my new blue headphones, and laid my head back agains the rest, while gazing out the tiny side window.

I wasn't looking forward to flying, so I prayed instead.

I prayed for God to protect me, and land this plane safely so I can live longer and achieve more . So I can become something. And amount to anything.

The plane began to move.

Faster and faster until eventually we were roaring down a runway, stopping for nothing, slowing for no one.

Pure power.

I felt the front of the plane lift from the ground, which leads me to my favorite part. There is a moment, just as the front wheels take flight, and the bottom wheels drag behind the plane. The world feels as though it is shaking, like it is about to morph into something new, when suddenly you feel a kick- 

A dip-

And then you're completely in the air.

You don't feel yourself moving upward, but you feel the angle, and you see the ground moving further and further away.

It was this moment I looked out of the window.

Tears formed in my eyes for the first time as I really took into account the sight before me. How small I was in such a big world. Theories, concepts, and thoughts all came to my head at once. 

What if? How? When? What about? Why?

The thoughts, alone, took up my whole flight. But suddenly we were landing and the thoughts were left in the sky in which I found them.

I didn't think twice.

In between then and today we had a great trip. They ran, and finished. I ate, a lot. We shopped. We explored. We had a blast!

Then we came back.

I boarded this plane with less eagerness, and stress . Even though I didn't want to fly at night, I knew I would get a nap and it would take up the time.

A nap, I needed. 

This time we were in the first group to load into the plane, and I snagged a seat next to a window once again, this time opposite of my mother.

 "Thank you for flying with... If happens...pull this. If... Push that. Help yourself first."

That line again... I shrugged it off.

This time the plane picked up speed quicker, got to the sky quicker- and I was about to nap it out when I looked outside.

Lights from the city luminated like constellations agains the empty blackness of space, the ocean was not visible by color in the darkness, but just made the image before me fade to a beautiful nothingness.

The yellow gleams mimicing stars in a magestic and unparalleled way, sectioned together like a group of moons from another plantet.

Imagine one of those constellation maps. With the black backround, and yellow colored dots which stand for the stars. The city of San fransisco looked like thousands of constellations filled in with those yellow dots.

Only their dots where glowing.

There are few sights in this world that have taken me for my breath. I mean, I have seen beautiful. I see beautiful every day- but sights like these...

Well, you don't ever forget sights like these.

I have never felt so small.

Then it hit me, 

Right in the stomach, the concept hit me like a ton of bricks aimed directly at my rib cage.

How foolish of me to always be so concerned with myself.

How foolish of anyone!

"Help yourself first?"
"God can you protect ME so I can amount.."

Getting on that plane was a form of me escaping my problems, if even for a short time. Throughout the whole length of the trip, it was all that I was concerned about. MY needs. MY problems.

Problems I could not escape.

Eventually, I knew i would have to come back to the problems I was so eager to leave.

And it occurred to me-

If we focused all of out strength into loving others, then our hurt be a lot less destructive. 

What i mean is this:
World-wide some of the most common advice given is to LOVE.
If we all focused all of our strength on pouring that love into others, if that became our only concern and our only motivation for doing things, then our "individual worlds" would be a lot less shaken by the hand of our own defeats.

And im not talking changing the world, though a movement like that definitely could. Im talking in your personal life, Loving others in return makes it easier to love yourself.

Problems that seemed big, get smaller.
Joy is more prominent because hurt fades away.

I thought about the millions of peoples living around those lights, in those mysterious worldly constellations and how a world of people who were as self-consumed as i had been would create a world of the most dangerous type of hate.

But if we love, we have hope, passion, joy, faith, reason, loyalty, honestly, peace, compassion, laughter, and power...then fear, pain, and sadness cannot defeat us. For love is more powerful still.

I don't know.

 as I exit that plane, and move on my way- I haven't forgotten . I think of it as a sign, a wake up call for me personally. 

We can do better.

Some call her heartless

" some call her heartless?"

No.

many. 

Many call her heartless. Her being me, me being TJ- I have absolutely been called heartless many a time . 

I'm not heartless, though. I have a heart- I hear it beat during anxiety attacks, and when I'm nervous or scared (which occurs often.)

Some call her unemotional .

I have emotions. I feel. I fear, I love, I hate, I hurt.

Im human.

 I may keep them secret, but I can assure anyone that I do, in fact , feel.

Some call her a insensitive.

I'm not. I feel a lot.
For everyone, i feel a lot.
And realistically, i feel too much. I invest a lot in people, trying to assist in their hardships, their heartbreaks, their tough times and tight situations.
I feel for them, but I dont show fear and pain when i am the one who needs to be the support.

Some call her unattached.

Spot on.

I am unattached. When i do things i do them with the knowledge that this person may or may not do the same for me.
I see the best in everyone, but i expect the absolute worst because that is the type of experience i have. 

I care. I do.

But i dont feel sorry for people who have had it tough. I dont show empathy for them.
Though i show respect for the ones that grow despite of it.

I dont trust anyone, because i have never met anyone that has proven they were worth it.
I dont rely on anyone because no one has ever come through.





I am not one to dwell on the past, for it is the past for a reason. But many things have happened in my life that have hurt, and hardened me. Completely.

I thank God for the change in my spirit, and the calming of my heart, for otherwise id not be the free spirit I am today.

People see what they want to see .

In me.

Maybe in you.

They take an outside wrapping and pretend to assume what is inside, like a child with presents on Christmas Eve . They say what they think, then they commit and "know for sure"... When they don't know at all.

I suppose this post is all over the place. 

But in my defense, my thoughts are all over the place as well. 

It comes down to this:

Judgement is not always accurate.

If you really want to get to know someone, you should invest in getting to know them. 

People spend their whole lives bound by the assumptions others make. 

Some call her heartless.

But some don't know her very well.

White Picket Fence

Old movies do it best.

Imagine this: You're outside at a park, watching a film that is being projected on a huge screen 40 feet in front of you in the  middle of the night. Your significant other is on your right, and you both are laying back on a small picnic blanket while the stars shimmer above your head, and the soft whispers of other couples make their way around your ears. Old movies at the park are your favorite.

The film pans, in slow motion, across a cookie cutter neighborhood, with beautiful trees on either side of the street. The camera moves in on a family laughing with their neighbors over the white picket fence that divides the two incredible homes. You are so taken by the beautiful film, you almost dont hear me scoff from about five feet away from your picnic blanket.

But i did. Scoff, i mean.

Call me modern, but i hate the idea of a "white picket fence". Mostly because i have LIVED that way.

I am not talking about the idea people in the sixties and seventies had about living the "american dream" and getting their home in the suburbs. Im talking about the common misconception of a "white picket" lifestyle.

I may be a bit more adventurous then your average young lady, but one thing that drives me nuts are the people that are afraid to try anything.

We are not called to be motionless. And we definitely aren’t called to perfection.

I dare you to move. 

Those white walls, though beautifully decorated WILL come crashing down on your head, that planted grass will poison your step. Those laughing neighbors will betray you because at the end of the day - it is your neck before theirs.

And behind the thick wood, inside closed doors you know you're life isn't the perfect that you allowed it to seem.

I don't want to scare anyone. That is not my intention- to each their own, and to each their home. 

But realistically, the sky is not always the pretty shade of blue we paint it to be. Sometimes the skies turn grey. And that beautiful paved rode we have been driving on turns muddy. 

Fog blurs our vision.

This was my life, for the last year .

Like a mislead old movie, I put up this front- I lead people to believe I lived a perfect life, when behind closed doors, I was slowly crashing.

I took a mental picture of what was happening, and distorted the image until it matched an expectation I assumed others held.

"shes young"

"she has her own apartment"

"she has a loving boyfriend"

"she even has a pet"

"her parents love her"

"she does great in school"

"she graduated early"

"she has three jobs, and is a manager"

"AND she is joining the navy!"

Day in and day out came claims of jealousy. People admitting to wanting my life- with no shame.

Others bragged about knowing me, laughing as they retold my jokes, and narrated my life stories.

THAT GIRL WAS NOT ME.

My parents had to help me out of that apartment that i couldnt afford, my boyfriend had cheated and did so multiple times before i ever knew, my dog was CRAZY and destroyed that apartment i could not afford, i graduated early...like ninety percent of my class because our counselors were on top of it, i never had three jobs in all- i had one job, quit, got another one, quit, got another one and kept it. I was a terrible manager. Terrible.

My grades were not good, because i stopped trying when i decided to join the navy.

...then i dropped out of the navy.

 So there is that.

I thought I was suppose to live a certain way, and meet certain expectations.

My beautiful life, surrounded by my white picket fence was only protecting the inside of a destroyed home on a muddy road. There was a mess where my life should have been, for a long time.

And only recently have I changed to something better.
Only recently have I let myself BE myself.

Only recently have I stopped trying to deceive.  

I am not ashamed of who i have been, or who i am now. Im not ashamed of what i have and have not accomplished. (for there are many of both.)

 I am ashamed because i let myself be defined by the assumptions of others in the fear that i would otherwise not matter, and would otherwise be forgotten.

A wise man once said that we cannot not be defined by our failures.

I disagree.

We can absolutely be defined by our failures, if not our failures then what? what makes us who we are? what teaches us what we have to learn out of a classroom, and out of our homes.

If not failures what influences us to grow, what pushes us to be stronger.

We can absolutely be defined by our failures. Absolutely.

But we are defined by our accomplishments as well. We are defined for our approach to all problems, all defeats. We are defined in the way we treat others. We are defined by the strength in which we fight, the speed in which we respond, and ABSOLUTELY. ABSOLUTELY.

we are defined by our failures.

But we do not have to become our failures.

I guess what i am saying is this:

That "white-picket" lifestyle is beautiful. It is a concept of perfection that we as humans know we cannot meet otherwise. It is an object of jealousy..

but it is tiring. and NOT worth it.

Be who you are.

There is an unspoken beauty in chaos.

We dont have to have it all together- we dont have to be perfect. 

And above all, we don’t have to be afraid of letting people see past those white-picket fences into a disrupted home, a crazy, chaotic, mixed up home- because at the end of the day

Who we are is made by who we’ve been.