life should be a straight line.

i don't think i really know what to think of that. my knee-jerk reaction is to disagree, that life should be about cycles and circles, that it should go on in some restless merry-go-round. how else would we remember? how else would we learn? i know that i am quick to forget. too quick for the things that matter, and very slow for the things that don't.

but really i don't know. i do know that 4 years ago i was in a pattern of destruction. a self-induced spiral of self-loathing and torment.

and then i watched someone i love breathe her last breath, and i knew from that moment i would never be the same. and i wasn't. i met clint the next month.

to live life in a straight line seems alluring for the false promise that we won’t have to relive those painful moments. It assumes that we can’t ever go back lest we be overwhelmed and overtaken, that in a sense we are owned by our baggage. And for bouts of time, sometimes I am. But underneath my shame and my guilt, my reluctance to rip off the old familiar scabs and pour on the salve, a voice comes to me and whispers “ the only pain is to feel nothing at all”.

sometimes at my lowest moments, when all my strength has been sapped my insatiable need for validation and love, I would say with earnest that life is two steps forward, three steps back.

But at my most peaceful, i'd say "it's getting better every day". i think somewhere, in a very small, hopeful corner of my heart i believe this to be one of the truest truths. i suppose that are the moments that matter: the hopeful ones.

i guess what I‘m trying to say is: I believe that life should move forwards in a series of circles, but its not all bad. there are lessons i am fleshing out every day that bring me back to those humble beginnings, when i had only begun to scratch the surface of my black heart. it is important for me to revisit these things, not to glorify them, or pay them tribute, but to remember what it felt like back then, in all its pain. i realize that these thoughts come from someone who is not in an abusive relationship. My strongest addictions are coffee, and chocolate, and maybe the familiar caress of my beloved.....but to me: life is a sweet cycle of struggle - one that i believe is making me stronger instead of tearing me down. making me talk when all i want to do is be left the hell alone. Making me apologize when I‘m terrified of losing. it's a different cycle - one that moves forward instead of digging in to those deep, comfortable tracks. one that is scraping out new earth with each rotation, never forgetting where it started, for its there that it can clearly see how far it has really come, and in that revelation there is hope.


Oh, and as a side note: I got my tattoo.