Miss' Boudoir

Showing posts with label Miss. Show all posts

When my ex husband left me, it should have been a wake-up call. But it wasn't.
He left me with $3000 in debt to the electrical company, and a house we were being evicted from. I had less than a month to come up with the money to move into a new place. I found a 2 bedroom apt for Caden and I, in a bad neighborhood, but I made sure it wasn't far from his dad. I found the baby sitter and paid her myself. I'd get to work late 2 days a week so I could go to food banks. I worked 3 jobs just to pay the bills. Sometimes leaving Caden tucked into bed alone, while I walked down the street to waitress at Dennys, hoping I'd make enough in tips to have gas money for the next day. I bought Caden's clothes, shoes, drove him to my Inlaws house for weekends away, bought the school pictures, took him to every Dr apt, you name it. I did it and I paid for it.
But I was so worried, so concerned, about my ex. That every gift I gave Caden, included his dad's name. I sent him the school photos I paid for. I would buy him food when he'd tell me he couldn't keep Caden for the weekend because he couldn't afford to feed him. I'd help him with gas. I made sure his things were packed nicely and even stored some of his stuff at my house at his request. I obeyed every request, jumped through every hoop, and I spent my time wondering what else I could do to make him happy. I'd even text him when he was missed, when friends asked about him. When I had memories of good times. When I felt he needed a hug or just to be told he was loved, I did it. And I did it for over a year.
Until the bank called. They were shutting down my bank act and credit card. I didn't know I had them. Apparently my ex had opened them up in our names before he'd left and then he ran them up. I asked them to send me the statements for every month. It was a heart breaking, soul crushing, eye opening experience.
He ate out at nice places 3 times a day. He took his mistress to hotels. He went on trips. He would spend a couple hundred dollars at the mall. He'd blow a hundred bucks on sushi dates every week. Trips to the movies. He paid for Tinder Plus and Match.Com All the time I'm struggling and fighting to take care of Caden and be supportive of him, I even went 2 weeks eating nothing but Squash and tomatoes from my friends garden, and he was treating me like the doormat I was. Shortly after that I filed for divorce.
I allowed someone, who had cheated on me and told me I was ugly and worthless and stupid, to use me up completely. To drain me dry. All because I didn't want them to feel unloved. I didn't want them to feel as though they had been given up on, or forgotten.
I knew that pain, exquisitely, and I could not handle another heart feeling it. Especially if I could stop it.
The problem is that I have not stopped. I haven't learned the lesson. And I still allow people to take and drain me.
I go out of my way to help people feel special. To feel loved. To feel thought about, needed and wanted. I'm the friend everyone calls when they need a ride, or advice, or a meal, or clothes to borrow, or just a hug. But it ends up being a draining and painful experience when I'm done.
I have to stop chasing after people who are not chasing after me.
I have to stop giving love to people who can't offer me simple courtesies.
I need to only invite people into my life who match my effort.
I need to stop accepting less for myself.
And I'm going to.
Call it a resolution, or a realization, or a defining moment. But this is what my new goal is.
And its going to be hard and it will hurt.... But I'll be better for it.

This isn’t about ultimatums—it’s about the reality that comes with loving me.

I don’t compete, nor do I come in as a savory consolation prize when what you really wanted remains just out of your grasp.
This isn’t to say that I plan on placing you under lock and key—because I don’t.

I don’t know what tomorrow’s sunrise will hold, and I remain unsure about where our journey will lead us and if that means we will someday choose to belong to each other. But, what I do know more certain than anything, is that you have a choice to make one day: to either be with every woman in the world or to be with me.

I’m not meant to be one of many, and in truth you’ll never fully know the wonder of my world unless you choose to step into it with me. I’m not meant to be taken in small doses, in moderation, so as to not overdose and lose your bearings in a futile attempt to play it safe. Whether you see it or not, I’m the kind of woman that men spend their whole lives looking for. I’m the urban legend, the stuff of tales between fathers and sons, and the irony that the woman their mother told them to be wary of is the very same kind their father told them to find.

I know my worth, although perfection is not a word that will ever be used to describe me, or my behavior. But I wasn’t put on this earth to be flawless, but to be so real that I could bring you to your knees with just a single look. I want you to feel me from the roots of your hair to the tips of your toes. I want my energy to dance through you and send ripples through your muscles, reminding you that the only people that find magic are the ones who are crazy enough to believe it exists.

Perhaps you don’t see any of that though—and if that’s the case, then you should choose everyone else; anyone else but me.

The only man who deserves to share my bed and my life, is also the one who knows this. The one who loves me as much as I bother him, but who sees my value every day, regardless of what it might bring. I’m not going to convince you, or beg you, or wait for you, or even chase you. All I am saying is that I’m not meant to be shared and the only way for you to really understand what life would be like by my side is to actually stand with me for a bit and see what way the wind blows when we come together.

Life is a riddle, and the punchline rarely makes sense.

Yet, whether you are in my arms or not, you’re still with me each evening. Too much has transpired between us, and in truth, I don’t think will ever be the same again. You changed my life—you came in and helped make it possible for me to fall in love with myself. My life is better because you are in it. Maybe it doesn’t add up that I’ve never questioned my place in your life, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t wondered.

Just because I don’t ask for something, doesn’t mean I don’t want it.

Perhaps that is my problem all along; I never ask for anything from anyone. I never ask you to love me, or to only be with me. I never ask you to do anything—but one day it will be time for all that to change.

I think that you could have a perfectly wonderful life without me, and you could spend your nights with different women, sharing your bed and fantasies. Maybe there’d even come a day when you forget about me all together, and I become nothing more than a faded memory that brings a smile to your lips.

But wonderful doesn’t always mean worthwhile.

As much as I think you would be fine without me, I think you would be even better with me—I think both us would be better for it.

I think that sometimes, something special comes along and proves why every tear, every hardship, every challenge is worth it. To me, you’re that something special.

I’ll never pretend that you don’t mean anything to me, because I can no longer imagine being with anyone else. But I don’t know what the future holds or if someday I’ll have to do just that.

But I am here, in this shaking moment, and as terrified as I still am at having my life changed and broken—I am ready to be yours.

I’m ready to throw the dice and lay my heart on the table because there isn’t anywhere else I would rather be than with you.

So, you can have any woman in this beautiful world or you can have me. My heart, my life, and my body—all of me. No pressure though. For the man who truly sees me, this will be the easiest decision in the world. The thought of me kissing someone else other than him would be too much to take, and so whether he knew all the answers or not, the one thing that he would be sure of is that he couldn’t let me go.

And so maybe you will decide that I’m better off with someone other than you—but I’m kind of hoping you don’t.
In reality you could be with any woman in the world, but why choose that, when you could be the one who has me?

To love Me—madly, truly, deeply—takes one hell of a determined heart, for I am as wild as they come.

In my commitment to ever-evolving and ever-transforming my self and this world we live in, I will push and pull— because I understand that any life worth living well must be built on a solid foundation of truth and so to love Me, the beating in your chest must be strong and you must know how to root down and stand your ground.

My ways, which I learn as I go, will shake the dust until everything that does not belong falls away—and at times, this might mean I push you away, too.

As fierce as I am, hidden in my heart of hearts is a too-big doubt that I can be loved completely and so be prepared for me to bare my teeth if you get too close to the place where I hide my fear; this is both a test of your intention and a way to keep my sacred heart safe, for to love Me, you must love all of my heart and the most-vulnerable parts you must love most of all.

There will be moments when the need to race through the sea (or around the world) takes over and I will bolt, with no explanation (I will try to my best to tell you why, but how I live is through feeling and even though words are a part of my craft, in these instances, my wildness can find none); and so I will go, soaking life in through all of my senses as I must do in order to understand how life works—and when you find yourself feeling forgotten, my heart will beg you to be patient, for I will return to you as soon as I can, panting and heart pounding, full of all I have learned.

(I am loyal and I understand that before I can show up for the one I loves, I must first learn how to show up for myself and it is through this strengthening of will and compassion that I ask you to invest your trust in me; for while my heart holds love for all beings, the kind I have for you will move mountains and light all the stars in the sky.)

I need this freedom to feed my creativity and I will look at you with my knowing eyes to see if you see it all, for because I am who I am, I will want you to be who you are, too—nothing more, nothing less.

I know the unsaid things, because I feel them—the ones we hold onto as our mouths move and the opposite words fall from our lips, instead; I will often get alarmingly still and this is because I need to in order to hear it all. In the hush, I will gather my information and file it away, for if I am anything I am organized and everything has a place (and there is even a place for things-that-don’t-have-a-place).

To love Me, understand that my space must be in order before I can do anything; my mind is the largest of libraries, and there is always work and learning to be done. Before I can settle my attention on you fully, everything must be in place and then I will curl up, serene and surrounded by the serenity of my heartbeat, and if the day is slow and the moon just right, I will wait for you to crack your chest open and show me your raw, beating heart.

(The idea of this might make you recoil, but please know that I have been making it my practice to spill open—and so while I don't expect you to make it yours too, there is a certain kind of give and take that offers balance to every union. So, from time-to-time, honor me—and more importantly, you. Show me that thing about you that you’ve taught yourself to hide away, for I can promise you that I will not shy away and I know in every stitch of my bones how to love like the ocean.)

I will transform what I have learned in these moments of deep listening into wisdom, and as I get older, I will learn how to rule myself accordingly. It is likely that on my path, this one that has no footsteps to follow; the one I designed for myself back before the start of time, that I will fail many, many times. I will be uncomfortable in my impatience and when you stop by for a visit one night, you may well find me in pieces on the kitchen floor, my body not able to lie or to hold it all in, tears and snot running down my face—and here is when you will witness the strength that vulnerability brings.

(I have shown you everything in this moment. I will stay there, and ask you to stay with me, until it is time to pick myself up, again. Your presence will fill my heart with gratitude, and I may even slide my hand into yours, or lay my head on your shoulder, and let out a sigh—I am shy when it comes to this sort of thing—accepting the support I so desperately crave and fear, so let it unfold, slowly and carefully.)

I will yearn not for a castle on a hilltop, but for a cabin in the woods, so that I can sit by the river that runs through the land and listen to the lessons the four directions has to share. I will bow down and touch my forehead to the ground often, in an act of reverence, gratitude and prayer—and I will understand that the breeze that whistles through treetops carries with it messages meant just for me.

I will need just-enough to sustain a simple life, for I know that richness lies in the slow, humble moments of laughter and figuring it out, together. I will feel like royalty if you return from a walk in the woods with a handful of wild flowers and if you take me on a date to gaze at the stars, I will devote my heart to you, and you alone.

I play battle with my ego and with the years marking themselves on my body as time often does, I have learned how to tango with the righteous voice that can sometimes fight to be heard.

I am prideful—yes—let not that pride be mistaken for anything other than the highest form of integrity; I will prefer quiet nights in to loud nights out and I will be happiest curled up with a book, for within the pages lies where my life began.

I am stubborn—but I am kind and my compassion reaches to the far corners of the earth. In my heart, I hold it all; the joy and the sorrow, the laughter and the tears. As much as I want you to wrap your arms around me and be held, I also need moments to hold myself, for I feel so deeply at times I wonder if it is a blessing or a curse.

So to love Me, you must first love yourself; let the space in your togetherness be like the sea and in my rhythm, you will learn the meaning of a heart roar.

When I say I miss you, what I mean is that everything reminds me of you.
Wood. Tea. Cars. Water. Dogs. Books. Spoons. Cushions. Socks. Rain. Toast. Wind chimes. Children. Everything has a connection to you. The way you might feel about something, how you might look at something, what you might say to someone... You are everywhere. As if my mind was not consumed enough by you, your essence is everywhere outside of me too. When I say I miss you, what I mean is, I stare.
I catch myself after a minute or two and am never quite sure what I was thinking about. But I know it was you. Maybe it wasn’t even a thought. Just a feeling.
I look forward to your eyes seeing mine. Clear, easy love with none of the torturous thoughts that once barraged my mind. I look forward to me not caring about the negative, harmful things I have cared so much about. And I look forward to being able to love you, just as you are, with all of me. No hiding, no denying, no judgement, no fear. I look forward to us.
When I say “I love you,” I mean I trust you. I respect you. I admire you. I adore you. When I say “I love you,” I mean my life is better with you in it. I’m a better woman because of you. And the more I come to know you, the more I want to know. I miss you when you’re not around. I’m grateful for every moment we’re together.
When I say “I love you,” I mean I want to be the one you turn to when you’re hurting. I want to be the one who listens. I want to hold you in my arms. I want to take care of you. I want to give you something to stand on in this crazy, constantly changing world.
I want to wake up next to you in the morning. I want you beside me when I close my eyes at night. In a universe of infinite possibilities, on a planet of seven billion human beings, I want only you.
I love you. And not a day goes by that I don’t tell you.
But the silent poetry that throbs in my chest cannot be uttered in three little words—or 3,000 for that matter. Whenever I try to describe the way I feel for you, every word seems trite and hollow; the whole English language insufficient. Because how do I explain a feeling that encompasses every piece of me?