Sometimes you fall, spinning through space, grasping for the things that keep you on this earth. Sometimes you catch them. They can be the hands of the people you love. They can be your pets- pups with funny names, cats with ferocious old souls. The thing that keeps you here can be your art. It can be things you have collected and invested with a certain sense of meaning. A flowered, buckled treasure chest of secrets. Shoes that make you taller and, therefore, closer to the heavens. A suit that belonged to your fairy godmother. A dress that makes you feel a little like the Goddess herself.  Sometimes you keep falling; you don’t catch anything.  Sometimes you fall, spinning through space, grasping for the things that keep you here. Sometimes you catch them. Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes they catch you.

- Francesca Lia Block

It’s really weird waking up in a hotel room in a city so far from home.  I guess I didn’t expect that the safety of being at home -  in a familiar place -  was one of those things that made the day to day a little easier.  The routine made it all easier.  Wake up, work, come home, eat dinner, watch a movie, get online, go to bed.  That routine offered a comfort that I didn’t know I relied on until I found myself here in Melbourne.  It was, I guess, the familiar thing whereas now I am surrounded by unfamiliar things and I’m a bit afraid to let go because I don’t know what or who would catch me.  It’s a bit strange being around Janie and Monica, these two people who I have trusted more than anyone I ever have before, and to be so happy to sit around with them and just be and yet to feel so uncertain about who I am in their lives after everything that has happened with all of us.  It makes it so much harder to open my mouth and talk, to be who I am, because there is no safety net.  I’ve found myself clinging to Janie as the only familiar thing I have here and at the same time it feels like it doesn’t quite fit, like I’m relying too much on it, on her, on whatever we are in this moment.

When Monica and Donna dropped us off at our hotel last night and Monica hugged me goodbye she said “Please don’t be like this,” and the most frustrating thing is that right now I have no idea how to be any other way.  I feel like I’m trapped behind this barrier and I’m screaming for help but no one can hear me.  No one will help me and, worse, I have no idea how to help myself.  I feel small and insignificant in a way I never have before which is really fucking awful because I have spent much of my life feeling pretty fucking worthless.  There is a groundlessness to losing your partner that is unbelievably difficult and to add on top of all of that a fractured friendship is fucking mind blowing.  And I see Janie and Monica together and talking and I feel sad and lonely because not that long ago I used to be a part of that, I used to be important to them and now I feel a bit like I don’t exist. Invisible.  And as I sit and listen and watch and look at them I’m literally pleading on the inside – please fucking notice me.  PLEASE SEE ME IN HERE.  And they don’t.

In the beginning of this break-up I said that this would all be made harder by the fact that I’d have to deal with so much of this alone.  Maybe it’s putting that idea out there in the first place that is what bit me but it feels more true now than ever, the loneliness.  I’m surrounded by people who express concern, who try to help, who offer opinions and advice, who try to get me to open up but there is no one left who sees me.  Who sees beyond the obvious projection of who I am and into my heart, my mind and my soul and that is what makes it all so lonely, that’s what pulls the ground out from under me and I find myself falling, falling, falling.  There is no one left to catch me and I’m afraid I’ll keep falling forever because the people I’ve trusted to catch me can’t be that anymore.  They’re too far away and here I go, over the edge, and it is so far down and I can’t see the bottom.  I can only have faith that someone or something down there is strong enough because right now I’m not strong enough to catch myself.  I’m not strong enough to reach out my hand and say please help me, I’m dying.

Back in May I wrote a post called “This used to be a downward spiral” and I ended it with this:

What has for several months now felt like a downward spiral of lonely searching and heartache, of tearing myself down, has changed so drastically in the last days.  I now find that I am building myself up, piling on all the bits of goodness I found in the rubble and under the grime of years and years and yet more years of doubt and discomfort.  What I thought was an exercise in ridding myself of ugliness has turned into an exercise in self-discovery, in uncovering the beauty rather than tearing apart the beast.  This is completely new territory for me, and I know the journey I’ve just begun will not be as easy and as clear as it seems in this moment.  But what I have learned is that I am not alone in all of this, that I have a family of people who love and believe in me without end.  A group of people so magical in their collective goodness that it is impossible not to trust in them.  So with that trust, with that love, I let go and move on from this crossroads with a solid foundation of support beneath me.  I know they will not let me fail.  And that makes all the difference.

I just read that and it feels so unfamiliar.  I have no idea who that person is.  I have no idea what it means anymore and it’s disgusting.  Somewhere I stopped building myself up and started tearing myself down again.  I let ideas get into my head that I should not have.  I started to believe those old things I held onto so tightly, those same things I had used to build up wall after wall after wall to keep people out, away.  I feel like I’m back to square one and I haven’t learned my lesson.  I’ve stopped believing in myself and I’ve stopped believing in the goodness of other people.  I’ve been told twice in the last months, by people who have said some pretty hurtful things to me, that they felt they had no choice.  In my head I’ve rolled that around and around and around and tried to make sense of it and the only thing that comes out is…they had no choice because I’m that disgusting of a person.  They had no choice because I deserve to be hurt.  They had no choice because I’m just that bad.  And there it is, in a nutshell.  The concept I’ve ben fighting against for all of my fucking life.

I AM A BAD PERSON.

I do not want to be a bad person.  I do not want to feel like this anymore.  I have fought so fucking hard to be good and it feels like the moment I start to feel it could be true, it disappears and I’m slapped in the face with this idea that, hey guess what, you will never be anything other than awful. You’re bad.  You’re mean.  You’re worthless.  You’re a loser.  You deserve all this hurt and anger because you’re just no good. There is no choice.  You get what you deserve.