Good Good Good Bye to relationships

My entire life I have run from close ties to anyone. I barely talk to any of the members of my family, but I have isolated myself to the point that I got gang raped and had no one to call for help when it was over.

I’ve been alone because people are complicated, stressful and hard to deal with. Sure there are a lot of people that I love with all my heart, but the ones I held close to my soul, who had peices of me that can never be replaced because they died….those people are gone.

The ones I used to watch the stars with, the ones I used to lay and look up at the clouds with. Those relationships have doors that closed long ago, and here I am out on my own wondering what I am going to do next.

I was just at my neighbor/adopted mom’s house, and we were talking about a couple she delivers the paper to. The wife tells her not to deliver, the husband tells her to deliver, and this cycle goes on at least two more times I think, I tuned out when I realized this shit is the reason that I am single.

I spent all of my twenties being this entire person that I thought the people around  me wanted me to be, and I cracked my soul in half trying to figure out who I really am and today as I sit in my filthy should probably be condemned but not really because then I’d be homeless, writer’s apartment, I realize I am happy in the chaos, alone and I fucking love it.

I need it right now. I need the isolation in ways I didn’t before, where I craved attention with my every waking moment, all I want to do is sleep and de-clutter my home at my pace. All I want to do is get stoned and write love letters to hand out to random strangers.

I want to listen to Linkin Park on repeat and wonder what it would have been like to sit with the audience and listen to my favorite band. To watch Chad as he serenaded the people in the crowd who were angry, sad and joyless before entering into a wild army of loyal devotees. I have hit my fucking mid thirties.

I will forever resent and regret that I never saw LP Live, as every devotee of true music art should be, I will be forever grateful that the last night I saw my friends was the same night that they found out I’d been gang raped. I will forever regret this time that I am taking to heal my body mind and soul without their intrusion, because that’s what it would be.

I barely wrote anything this summer, because I needed to take a break, and take a huge humble pie pill and look at my life in the way that others might see it from the outside.

I don’t particularly like what I see, but it’s a bit like theater my life, “this is how the world sees your life, because this is what you’ve shown them.” – I don’t know who said this but they are fucking brilliantly smart, because it’s true.

I forgot that people show you what they want you to see, and you have to stop treating them like you don’t see through the bullshit. I turned away from a friend this past year, because I didn’t like what I saw when I looked at that relationship. I had hopes that this person and I might figure things out, but the more I thought about it, I realized, nope. That relationship has officially come to it’s messy conclusion, and while I hate that it ended this way, I don’t regret not picking up the phone to rectify that.

I’ve spent too much of my twenties compromising everything I wanted to be, to become what other people expected that I forgot who I could be, and this my friends is what it is like to be in your thirties.

So now I’m looking at my life realizing I didn’t do any spring cleaning, and I probably won’t do much fall cleaning, because in part I am lazy, but in part because I am living in a petri dish of information at the moment and I am not sure what I want to do next with my life. That’s okay though, right?

I spoke to my mom about getting myself some serious trauma therapy and I am looking forward to that, because I know that I need it, and even though this isn’t where I thought I would be, I am not really interested in doing what other people think I should be doing right now in this moment in time. I’m interested in discovering this whole new person who is taking chances on herself by not doing the expected thing.

I am not rushing back to a job that gave me nightmares, traumatized me by day to the point of drinking almost nightly.

I am not interested in being with any man, because I don’t feel the need to feel completed yet. I am enjoying this map quest version of my life, even if I don’t – especially because I don’t really know where it is going to lead, and every single time I say that, it sounds trite.

“No, guys, really I’m single by choice,” but like, I totally am. I want to go and do things that I never let myself do before because I spent all my money on looking and feeling good, or hiding the fact that I was feeling like shit.

I haven’t worn make up in like two years, unless I want to feel extra special and pretty, so mostly Pride, and I feel great.

I cut all my hair off and I hate the hair cut with every fiber in my being but I am eagerly waiting to see what my hair does next and what it grows into, hoping it will be healthier and stronger.

I’m legit brushing my teeth again, and for me that’s a huge fucking task completed each day, because some days it’s all I can do to make sure I change my underwear. I am coming out of my shell at a snails pace and I fucking adore it.

Last week I took some love letters over to PACE, which is a local society that works with women who are, were or might be Sex Workers in the city of Vancouver and surrounding areas. They tweeted me telling me how happy they were to receive the love letters that I’d written by hand, and all I can think is how fucking lucky am I to live where I live and have this time to heal?

If I had a gratitude journal this is what it would say, all of this and more, because although it may seem pathetic or lazy, selfish or needy to some people, for me this is exactly what i need right now.

So a huge thank you to all my friends and supporters, but when I’m ready, really ready to re-introduce myself to the world I will let you know. Until then, please stop worrying, you know I am okay because I’m still posting on the blog, and while I love your concern, it’s really very sweet I promise I already hit rock bottom once, I don’t need to do it again.

Love always,

Devon J Hall