I'm Not Dead

I'm not dead, just floating
I'm not scared, just changing...
---Pink

I'm not dead. I know this now. Somewhere inside of me is a tiny fragment of life.

I feel like I am made of stone these days. Walls, ice, defenses on top of defenses. I won't let anyone into my thoughts, I withdraw and I don't discuss my feelings with anyone.

All of these are my responses to what that piece of shit did to me and my heart. I've been walking around like a zombie and spilling my thoughts here, but not letting anyone in the 'real' world get close enough to see how much pain I am in. I thought I was broken. I thought I had turned to stone. I thought I was frozen. I thought I had walls so high no one could ever scale them to find me...nor would.

But I think I understand something new too.

When I am alone, and Taylor is asleep, I cry. Sometimes I'm crying for me. Sometimes it's from exhaustion. Sometimes it's for no clear reason at all but just because I am so unhappy.

But if I can cry - even if it's alone and in secret, then I can feel something. Something beyond blinding, overwhelming hatred.

I'm still bitter. I see couples and I hate them. I see a screen name like "luvmyfamily" and I resent them. I hear about an engagement and I feel sick.

But I can still cry. If I can still cry, then there is still something inside of me that feels.

It's locked away. I can write about it now, this moment, because I can feel it now. In an hour, a day or a minute it will be locked away again - but this second, it's here and I can feel.

The me I have lost is broken and beaten down, but this teensy tiny cell of it lives on inside. In a moment like this, it has a voice.

I feel like this part of me is a prisoner. Locked and shackled away. Hidden and vulnerable. Even as I write this, the second word there strikes me as the answer...vulnerable. That's why it's locked away. Because vulnerability is what let jeff reach me once. Because it's the open door through which I have been hurt before. It's what I have locked up inside of myself.

I don't know how to break these walls down. I don't know how to be me again...or if I even can. Deep inside I want someone to be able to reach me, but at the same time I am guarded against this and ready to fight to keep anyone from getting close enough to see this vulnerable cell inside me.

It's when I am not crying that the 'stony self' is in control.

It's when I stop crying that I lose the battle.

I don't know that I can ever release the hate.

It's not until I move (April?!?!) that I can even begin to imagine a life beyond working but I hope that when I do...I will find that piece of me again and have a chance to nurture it to life.

I still do not know if I can ever open myself to love anyone again. Honestly, I doubt it.

But I hope I can regain some part of myself.