Weary Trails Writing
What’s sad is people get information that was sensitive in the first place. Post it in a group chat or on social. It gets back to the person so they can set the record straight. Which is good. But how often does setting the record straight lead to a sense of relief? It’s an understanding that not every lesson you have learned in life is for other people to consider throwing their judgement on.
I may have taken away something from you. I may have gone too far with my argument with you. That wasn’t a reason to be a jerk. Even more than if I had just apologized and you left it alone. I didn’t have to continue. I don’t have to continue. I don’t have to hurt you. And if I had decided to go above and beyond, yes; I would feel guilt. Asking myself, which way could this go is sometimes the next thought for the me, albeit I might be the arguer in the situation. Should it be the next thought, maybe an apology would ensue. You would know I had feelings. I had a heart. I was real in a sense to acknowledge your pain. Fine. It’s all settled for now. I don’t like the way I feel when I have to be mean to someone. When I have to discard patience.
Are you strong enough to handle someone coming to you and pleading for information about me? Can you be that strong person that isn’t going to go and tell my most intimate secrets? What if I am so self-aware and in tune with myself that I am not ashamed of myself. And I don’t like making someone else feel ashamed of themselves. I find myself wanting to learn how to be better. Be more managing of how they feel in a way that doesn’t discredit them as a person. And knowing I want to treat someone the same way I would want to be treated. And even in the event that forgiveness comes in; And with your level of discernment at that time being so low, you won’t be a good judge of character regarding that person fishing for information. And you will bow. Crumble. Releasing things you shouldn’t have said. And in my regard, that’s all I have done in the past. Is set the record straight about things. With the respect that there’s work to do within myself and time to ask God for peace. But I know I can make my own living being in my truth. I would just consider it best with due respect to how it’s delivered. How it’s done. I would get tired of other people trying to beat me to the punch when who I am as a person physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually isn’t your tender to worry about. Rushing to tell the next person a detail that you think by telling a third party is somehow going to make them feel uncomfortable. For me. it might be different. I love to talk. It may open me up. Maybe it won’t. But they’re feeling like it’s a burden that they carry in the eye of others. When it’s really just a burden they carry in the eye of them. If and when this happens to you, don’t allow yourself to be the filter for them. Behind closed doors your heart and your mind are in the gold mines for them. There are things that happen to people to make them divulge in a lack of discernment they can’t come back from and when they learn that sometimes knowing that the chain link of them strengthening their discernment is going through and mastering different levels of trauma. When you have been violated over and over, you have a way about you that shows people sometimes what you have been through. And letting the wrong people into your life can dive you deeper into your trauma. People are damaging sometimes to tell you to not live in your trauma; when you have to live in it to go through it. And going through the motions of healing can often be the most treacherous part. Sometimes people think the aftereffect is worse. Because they are alone and have to build back up. Sometimes I stay trapped in my trauma because I have a fear someone won’t be there to receive it for/from me. Massage it. Have I moved on from things, etc. It becomes a whole entire other level of sickness when you are so selfish with your motives and judgement and want so badly to ruin someone else that you push your way through that boundary.
Let’s say you want to dig for some information on someone. You go into your social media and search and find so much information about them it changes the way you feel about even going that far in the first place. Maybe it’s to send them a message. I remember the many times I did this and somewhat immediately regretting a part of myself getting so upset. I needed to take a break and rethink that. What I said. How I said it. Alone. A time out perspective. How we present ourselves even on social media can be considerably different from who we are as a person. In motion.
What if I cast a spell on this person?
Why is that your first thought? What is it about casting a spell that seems positive or negative to you? What if that person doesn’t want to be attached to you? Asking yourself if that person has ever said anything emotional to you that may tie you to them. Do you realize the restrictions that can put on someone?
What if I go and lookup the high school they went to and try to find information about them?
The damage you could do by opening doors that were not meant to open. Did they go to prom? Did they have friends in school? Who were their friends? And you are only doing this to hurt them. Of course there’s a way someone would feel. Intruded on. And maybe even like they wished they had the opportunity to talk to you and tell you who they are without you having to do all of that just to get information about them. They didn’t concern you. It’s a beautiful thing when a man goes to propose to a woman, and he used to go to school with and looks her up online. Making the appropriate arrangements along the way.
What if I found this person so “interesting” I want to make a podcast with them?
What if you found them so interesting you actually wanted to SPEND TIME WITH THEM. So many times I would sit and want a boyfriend to make cute music videos with. To do stuff like interviews. How I would take it is you find me so interesting that you interview me? It excites you to ask me questions about things. Because you’re able to fall in love with me as a person because of how I am talking to you.
What if I want to know even more about them so I sit and cause infidelity?
What good would something like that do for the person that you’re doing it to? Can you incorporate them and make it ‘good’… can you make it ‘okay’…can it be ‘fixed.’ And to what extent would you go to cause this to that person? Sometimes I reel in my head so much about infidelity I lose sleep. I lose pounds. I lose inspiration. A will to thrive. And it’s that very intoxicating suffocating feeling that makes me want to not talk. Shut down. In the same respect someone not being able to open up about how they feel can do the same. Or what it is that they have done.
I know the times I had not been faithful; I wanted to come back. I think it was my pride that didn’t let me come back. Would not let me crawl and bear my soul for what I had done. I had lost out on maybe what seemed to be good relationships in the midst and good people. For the fear of how they will perceive me. The most damaging part was realizing that in the time it took me to throw it away and come back; they could have met someone else who will be their crutch if I fail to massage their emotions or ego the way they want or the way they think that person does, and even then thinking that the other person can provide more comfort. What would that do for me? My soul? How could I come to you and feel like a good, honest woman who needed a second chance; knowing I am on a timeclock with you. I am in a recording studio. I am in a court room. Everything I say and do can be used against me. You can just say that you want to continue this intermission on the side while you ‘give me another chance.’
For which I should be grateful, right? Then give me a chance to be grateful. I have to have at the very least, that.
I didn’t always think there was a reason to not have that conversation. So much of the lead up the you being unfaithful is you lacking something either in your relationship or you. More of the desire to mask a part of yourself you feel is irrevocably lost. I don’t know why at the time I would be in so much fear of being honest. Wanting to just live in a better light with people I chose to be around. Knowing that with the more time that was passing and me not letting them know how much I valued or loved them; would make them initiate me out of their life. The initiation into your life being you proving that you come peace. I bring you no harm. I bring you happiness. Good. Comfort.
No doubt there was always a desire to provide that. But the question may have been:
‘Do you like to dance. I see this other girl dancing on her ________ maybe you should.” Me wondering if you think I am a good dancer? Am I good at entertaining?
“I follow this one girl on social media. She is really funny. She does these skits…” Me wondering if you think I am funny? Do I make you laugh enough to want to be around me and film me doing skits?
What does a model or actor need to play a part besides their costume? Encouragement. I had that sure. But did I lack confidence? Did I lack strength? Support? Encouragement to myself?
And I think to myself that I would love to open myself up to a world like that. But quite honestly, how? Where do I even begin? How am I supposed to look at myself? I already have issues with how I see myself sometimes because of everything I have been through. Some days I feel like a beautiful female and some days I just don’t. I don’t know why it is sometimes, but we don’t really stop to think that someone doesn’t see themselves the way you see them because of what someone has done to them and less of what they have done to someone else. I swear I had a struggle feeling pretty this morning. I walked into the kitchen and said,
“I don’t really feel all that pretty today.”
I had serious issues with my life in general when I woke up. There were things I wanted to fix. And places I wanted to go with myself. But my trust barrier was broken. I had no idea if I could trust. I would do some creative work, then fall back.
“Maybe I don’t want the attention.” I would think. Is it fleeting? Will I have this attention when I need it most? When I get home from work?
You, as a man sometimes might sit there and say that I bring you to your knees. And then I leave you there. But to that, I respond
“And even when you get up, are you pointing your trajectory at me?”
“As cupid, is your arrow pointed at me? How is it that I brought you to your knees and left you?
“Are you saying I had you to the point you would have done anything for me?”
Maybe I need to figure this out. Relating every feeling I had to everything in front of me. The idea of a general public wanting that part of you and you have no idea how to give it.
I would sooner think that if I had you to the point where you would do anything for me, I would not be complaining about the load that I have to carry. There would be things that I would celebrate. And sometimes, can’t be celebrated because you really have been brought to your knees. And refuse to get up and take me to the party. You have been on your knees praying for me to let loose right? To be myself. To open up. Trust me, if a man was on the sidewalk on his knees; I would know to allow him to stand up and meet me eye to eye as a gentleman. I am not your master. So, you do not need to stay on your knees if you don’t want to.
“I’m just not ready right now.” And there we have it. Given up before it even has a chance to manifest.
I got upset at myself more and more. More self-damaging behavior like smoking cigarettes and things like that. Not that writing is self-damaging or that it isn’t a form of self-care but I felt like the words were bubbles in my head trying to push through bricks. I didn’t care to push back and fight in the slightest. There was a part of me that knew running this race… like this… for this is only going to make me lose. I never felt like it was a race I had a chance at. Moreso feeling like it was a race I didn’t have a chance at. I was a loss before I began. I remember looking up pictures and photographs of past experiences and then thinking what was my mindset then. Where did I find more character? How did I find more strength? Nevertheless, people are just going to assume so much about where it might come from. My strength comes from nature. My desire to dive into the self-damaging behavior was the desire to mask the pain I was experiencing. Initially feeling like it wasn’t something I really deserved to go through. Why me would be a common outcry. Then saying to myself, it’s you because you choose it to be. Choose it to be something else and it will be. But to what avail? What vice. I got too comfortable at times relying on the silence in the room as my vice. That kept me up. Going. Alert. Joyful.
And they share some of the most intimate secrets about someone else. And you have to realize they start to love the company of you. Love making friends with someone who dislikes this person just as much. Just like high school. And the same way I was then is how I am now. Back of the room. Just primarily observant. Less threatening when it comes to attacking with vengeance and creating hardship. More prayer for the weary.
I worry about how I am going to seek to present myself to others.
