To feel something at all

When I arrived back to Northridge I always take time to evaluate who I have become over the time that I have been back home.  Well, I have come to the conclusion that I am not who I used to be.  Who you pretend to be is who you become.  After my first heartbreak I let myself go, by that I mean, in Joan Jett's words I didn't give a damn about my bad reputation.  Through my relationship with my ex I had been hard at work working on my lying and exaggeration in my story telling.  I was making a great reputation for my inner self and felt really good about who I was.  The support from my ex is what kept me going, his honesty. (later to be known as not so honest) 

So this summer I dealt with the fact that someone I thought had my back through everything did not.  I've never faced heartbreak before but the way I respected myself after it was over was shameful.  Or the fact that I didn't respect myself was the shameful part.  The thing was is that the tool that hurt me became a tool that I made mean nothing to me.  I no longer held it as a higher standard.  So in turn my respect was no where to be found.  Let alone to let myself feel anything for someone, and when I did, all the pain just came back as I allowed another to hurt my heart once again.  That is when I decided to close my heart so no one could break in anymore, not allowing myself to feel hurt, let alone joy, fully.

Here I am in Northridge.  While I was here I was in a relationship being single up here is quite weird.  But it is who I am.  I have realized that there are things that you cannot come back from.  Yes it is in the past but that does not mean it dissapears or doesn't haunt you.  It follows you.  100 miles away and I am still dealing with lies and the issues I created for myself solely for attention.  I thought bad attention was just as good as anything else.  I was wrong.  All i have recieved is mainly good attention, from that point i hadn't really done anything disgraceful.  But now that I have, I don't like it.  Do I regret my past? no not all of it, but I do regret the reputation I built.  It could have been much more respectable but how can you be respected by others when you don't even feel like you deserve respect?

I have been going on nightly walks with a friend, and in those times I think about who I am to him, he met me as the not so respectable woman.  He has never met the sweet loving Hope.  He knows the jaded, emotional, witchy woman that I am today.  It saddens me.  Because that Hope is gone and there is nobody I mean NOBODY who could bring her back except myself if I would choose to do so.  Frankly I love this woman who can not feel every single thing, who can hide the pain, who can be alone and feel okay.  But that endearingly naive, smart, funny, too trusting and the one to jump in fully with no shame of her feelings young girl is gone.  I can't get certain parts of me back.  But I can become the person I want to be just as I have become the woman I am today.  

It will be a long and hard journey finding the balance of peace and joy again, but I am so ready to climb all up hill if I have to but I will, I want to be Hope filled (oh so punny), and joy to return to my everyday life.  I am tired of not being okay with who I am on the inside.  I will make this happen I am determined.  To being a senior, to being whoever I want to be, to being the respected, to being someone who leaves a mark, to feeling joyfilled emotions again, to feel something at all, cheers.