vast oneness

(around and around

will i always be this way? will i ever stop throwing my heart outside of my body expecting it to stick when it invariably slides down the wall, so slowly?)

do you know what amanda means? it means, ‘deserving to be loved’. i think i’ve struggled under the weight of that my entire life. i can think of a hundred other people who deserve to be named amanda other than me. i want so badly to believe this about myself. i’ve disliked my name for so long, i’ve even convinced people that it doesn’t suit me. until recently. like hearing a song you’ve heard or known forever, someone played it for me and it suddenly became my favorite song. i was ready to listen hear to it. i guess i’ll be always grateful for that. but. like that song that reminds you of a certain place and time, when you go back to listen to it, your heart clenches because you realize you aren’t in that place and time anymore. 

i will die alone. and so will you. i spent so much of my life wrapped up in love and trying to love better, trying to hold onto it even after i’ve been discarded. i wish i didn’t care so much about it, but i think in the end i will be satisfied that i spent my time trying to love.

my name is amanda, and i deserve to be loved. 

i feel like one of those jello molds from the 60s with pieces of fruit in it. or i feel like the fruit i guess. just suspended in a solid, clear substance. i can’t move, but i can see everything going on around me. but my lungs are full, i can’t yell, i can’t scream. i’m just watching, waiting to be let out, only to be eaten.

i guess all the usual feelings of a breakup are washing over me in ways. but then not, because i don’t think my mind has fully understood what is happening, what’s about to happen. i rationally understand, but not emotionally. 

i had a breakdown in the kitchen earlier. i was alone, making coffee. well, making another cup of coffee, but i had already put my cup in the dishwasher. i pulled it out to refill it, but i didn’t want to reuse it anymore. so i put it back and felt bad, that i was wasting water somehow, or using dishes unnecessarily. so many thoughts that made me feel guilty. then out loud i said, “it’s ok”. and i started crying. i fell to the floor crying. i realized how often i take the guilt. i tell myself, “it’s not ok. what you’re doing or thinking or feeling is not ok”, to know that i abuse myself in this way constantly broke my heart. i felt it in the deepest part of my soul, i’m crying now as i write this thinking about it. so many times, i remember the way that someone reacted to something i did or said, and use that as a blueprint of how to act after that moment. i make sure to never do that thing again. thinking about how exhausting that must be makes me sad. thinking how much of my energy i give away without getting anything back makes me sad. what’s even sadder is that i allowed it to happen over the course of many years. i thought i was being amiable. i thought i was being considerate, generous, thoughtful and loving. i think the truth is i was being all of those things to someone else instead of myself. 

one of gianna’s favorite things to say to me was “how can i love you if you don’t love yourself?”. and i felt guilty for not loving myself. thinking about that now… i never answered the question. you can love me and help me love myself, because i still deserve to be loved.

                                               .siht daer t’nod

                                              .ti htrow ton s’it

i keep running out of myself. i find me on the torn piece of legal paper, clipped to a refrigerator magnet between dish soap and cat food.

i (invariably) forget to bring the list with me to the store, come home and am once again depressed that i can’t even remember to retrieve myself. or paper towels (to be expected).