Thursday, January 15, 2015

Sticks and stones, splinters and boulders.

This is my first post in I can't tell you how long.

This post should be about my beautiful baby boy who turned six months today.

This post shouldn't be emo and leave you halfway through saying tl;dr.

This post hurts me, but I have to write it. I have to get it out as I can't keep it festering inside like a scab on my heart festering with infection that I can't stop myself from picking at.

Behind every hurtful word said out of anger lies some seed of truth. Those on the receiving side can at times let the words slide right off them. No big deal. No scars. Nothing to see here. And then there are people who hear those words, over and over like a broken record. They know the truth is in those words, and it feels like it will never stop hurting, burning, breaking their heart over and over again.

"You have to be worthy of being earned."

Sounds like sage advice. Unless it's coming from your partner in the middle of an argument in front of all three children.

"You have to be worthy of being earned."

After a major blow out back in November I asked him to please date me, make me feel feminine, wanted, loved. Take me back to when we were first together. Please. Please make me feel wanted. Earn me. Please earn me back, because my heart was on autopilot, because I'm at my heaviest... because I feel the least sexy I've ever felt in my life... because I only feel wanted by my children out of necessity. My nerves are like sandpaper, my heart is a stone sinking deeper into my chest, I cry until I feel like I have nothing left... that I'm dehydrated from all the fluid leaking from my face.

I tell all this to my therapist, the psychiatrist, and it still doesn't feel right. I skate on thin ice afraid to speak up, afraid to make it worse, only begging for it to change, to please God make this right again. I'll do anything to make it right. Please God, we're both at fault and we both need help.

I wake up. I take my meds. I toss back two cups of coffee. I get kids out the door, nurse the baby, dress myself and sob at the reflection. The sour, sad, broken woman inside this shell is trying to make herself apparent physically. My pock marks seem bigger, my stomach saggier, my shirt sleeves tighter around my arms.

I don't want to be angry and bitter. I don't want to keep waiting either. I don't want my heart to hurt like this anymore.

The only glimmer of hope I can see is that I'm still taking my medication. That I'm still being proactive about my mental health. That maybe, just maybe, this is normal for heartbreak. That maybe, JUST maybe, this is how normal people cope with taking their relationship from best friends to just friends until the two can make themselves better inside. But, to me, I feel like I've lost a limb. I feel like my best friend sees the spinach in my teeth and is too revolted to fill me in.

"You have to be worthy of being earned."

Each day my brain picks, picks, picks at the scab.

Each day my brain analyzes every move I make, every word said, makes sure I don't make this worse. Sometimes I don't say anything at all. It's easier to pretend it's all ok, that those words don't sting me all day every day, that we're still friends and we're both going to put makeup on that bruise and move on.