Mad City, Dirty Waters

“I got tired of dancing with your demons and I was over it. I felt like you robbed me of a part of myself. Not physically, but I don’t feel the same. Time is of the essence but if that would have been all you walked off with, I wouldn't have minded at all. It crushes me that imminently nothing is wrong but 7 months, fifty-leven days, umpteen hours later ( for my usher fans) and I still don’t feel okay. I can't fake the funk, I cant. I'm hurt, I'm sad, I'm tired. I could still feel your energy, chaotic, angry, grudgeful and I hate it. My first love, you genuinely hurt me. I hurt me. I put my love FOR you over the love of myself and in turn I got robbed. Hurt people, hurt people. I don't feel the same. I want the me that I was before you back. I knew better but I failed myself, you helped me find my discipline, my strength but within that I lost my peace, my shine, and my spontaneity. I don't feel the same. I go into hermit mode, I meditate, I do yoga and I know that one day I will finally find the reset button on myself and I will feel normal again. One day I will, but I'm not sure if that's today so to make up for it , I cry and release it to the universe.”

I craved romance to the point where I accepted less than I should have ever allowed. Unconsciously, by engaging with underdeveloped men for the sake of "love" and affection, I lowered my own value. Not the value that society places upon women, like purity, virginity, style, presentation, and whatever they tell us is the standard of being a "real/good woman". The value that I lost with those men was the value of my own self worth. Every time I loved on, rubbed on, and engaged with their energy, it intertwined with mine. I attracted men with addictions, broken, hurt, and confused men. It confused me, they were all different as far as age, background, life stories, ethnicities, and all that , yet they were all the same. They all ran from themselves, they lacked self worth, and self esteem. They were angry, so very angry at the world and they didn't know how to cope properly. I didn't understand it, but now I’m starting too. As much as I understood myself, I only display so much of my real self to the world. I hid behind myself, an illusion, and I ran off with these sex crazed men who really just needed therapists. Yet, it didn't change the fact that in the end, they were all partially (yes partially) just a reflection of myself. All of them had little things about them, that now, years later, looking back, resonated with my own wounds. It made sense to me now. We were all lost. Mad City.

My transition into adulthood was one filled with solitude and sadly a little regret with a downfall as a result of my social development/ isolation. I have a whole bunch of "what ifs" and "how comes" that would come to haunt me as a result of me not taking action and creating memories in my own life. I felt like I was living each day the same way, it was driving me crazy to think that years in my mind have transitioned into blurs as a result of my own scared selfishness. I was selfish to myself because I robbed myself of opportunities that were dangling right in my face. I craved the idea of excitement and change, the only janky part was that I wanted it to only be on my own accord, yet life doesn't quite work that way. Social settings made me uncomfortable, this was a as a result of situations that picked at my self esteem, overthinking, and analyzing, among other things, but that’s another story. Even with the social anxiety, I craved the idea of having just one person to myself whom I can reveal myself too. Obviously not just in a physical and sexual sense but in a sense where I can find a friend in my partner. I wanted my forever man, my forever friend, and my forever lover. I was foolish to the fact that I was accepting any type of person as a way to fill the nasty turmoil of dissatisfaction within my own life. I accepted them because I was delusional and clouded by the potential that I bestowed upon them. I accepted potential over reality, laying in the comforts of my own self sabotaging behaviors. Dirty Waters.

In high school, I was pretty much invisible, now this isn't to blame anyone or anything, but I had become very comfortable playing the background of social settings. I stuck to my own routine and stayed around those who I knew. I had my own little group of friends and I lounged in the comfort that those few friends had provided me, yet I still kept them at a close distance. The issue of trust and being socially stunted had begun somewhere between sophomore and junior year, however I wouldn’t begin to figure it out until years later. Besides my little group of friends, I didn't desire to know anyone else. It was hard for me to allow people to see the real me. To this day it is something that I still struggle with but try to continue to grasp an understanding of. Still, I liked the idea of being alone. I had learned to keep to myself, not knowing that the sense of having friends but "not belonging" was just the mere start of my social anxiety that had begun to brew. I was very quiet, to the point where I got extremely annoyed but not surprised at the "I've never heard you talk before" remarks I would get from classmates that I've had classes with for years . I became too shy of my own light, dimming myself down and making myself small. In reality, the idea of being judged scared me more than I realized or was too prideful to admit. I feared rejection from people, even strangers, so I didn't bother to put myself out there, it made me uncomfortable at the thought of having to allow someone who was a stranger to get close to me, emotionally and/or physically. Along with my issues with self expression, I think I was more so afraid of actually liking them as well. For me to allow someone get close to me would mean that I trusted them. It was hard to trust and open up to people, and that was hard because I was weary of people. The pros and cons of being in the background was that it allowed to me sit back and observe. It allowed me to watch people as they showed who they really were. Maybe it was the many encounters of watching acquaintances act two-faced, or inauthentic towards people I thought they considered friends. I’m not quite sure, yet I know I can’t put all of the blame just on others, because at the end of the day I realized that we were all young and bound to make character mistakes, high school itself was a process of finding ourselves and growth, so as an adult I can emphasize with how young and ignorant some of were. That’s why I don’t try to hold any grudgeful feelings towards certain experiences that I’ve encountered but honestly, I would be lying if I was to say that some of those situations and circumstances didn’t still effect me to this day.(Healing is a process.) My issues with trusting people along with my fear of showing people who I really was, took a toll on my social life as I continued to blossom into womanhood. Maybe it was my harsh criticism of myself and others on my own part, or the freedom of not having to give any of my time or efforts to anyone, but socially and emotionally, I couldn't find the balance. It wouldn't be until college that I was really able to explore my experiences and learn more about myself, in reference to my reasonings.

These men that had come into my life had coped with additives like drugs, alcohol, anger and multiple women. It was ugly and embarrassing because they weren't even real relationships, they were situation-ships that I clung too, excited that I finally had some sort of companionship, “excitement”, and adventure. I used these few men who showed interested in me as a way to gain some sort of delusional freedom and change from the mundane reality that I had created, trying to make up for the missed opportunities and time that I have felt was wasted. I loved the idea of being alone but just like every other human, there were times I got lonely. In reality, these men trying to get so close to me should have been a test for me to practice rejecting men who weren't deserving of me. It should have been test of my self-worth and an opportunity to establish boundaries around myself and what I allowed from any man or partner...…. yet I failed, every time. As lonely and mistake ridden as I had been, I wanted a serious relationship. I wanted to mold these men into “ideal boyfriends” yet that was my first mistake, because no human has that kind of power. We have the ability to allow people to want to change for themselves, however we cannot personally make them change, we cannot love them into changing, we can’t sex them into changing, it’s something they have to want to do by themselves, with their own free will.

I was capable of being loyal, loving, nurturing, and caring. I was a passionate woman, I soon found out. I loved the idea of pleasing my someone, I thought that would be a solution, a quick-fix, to make them continue to want to see that I’m someone worthy of being with. That was my second mistake because our self worth is worth so much more than the opinion of someone who is not worthy of the kind of love I am capable of giving. I had to learn the hard way that I don't have to prove my worth to anyone. I had to study why I acted the way I did and accepted, within my past situations. I fed off the impulsivity, giving myself away, when in reality I should have been working with myself, really trying to find myself.

Over the years and after the handful of men that I had gotten close, broken and confused, I had no choice but to look for myself . I was forced by one man in particular to confront the commotion within myself when it came to my relationships. I think he was the only one I truly fell in love with. To be honest, I haven't quite finished untangling that situation yet. However, it made me realize I was being selfish, knowing that I had the ability to pull myself out of anything that I was casted into yet I tried to run to everybody else for the answers. It was selfish because I expected him to be an antidote to my issues, not realizing just how much he had to deal with within his own life. How would I expect a man to save himself and me? We all face different struggles within life, not in the sense that everything we go through has to be heavy but more so we all have our own battles that we have to face. We’re all living our own truths, so as messed up as he was, he didn't deserve to take on his own burdens and mine.

In reality , I clung to him, the thrill of being around him made me excited, I felt like I finally had that someone to see the outside world with, to explore. I was so used to always being alone. I fell in love with the idea of potential, whatever little affection was shown me, I would grasp onto it. Hoping that the potential that I held for them in my life would one day match my reality. That was my third mistake because it never did. I wanted love so badly that I accepted the breadcrumbs that I was given. I would see the red flags, pushing thoughts of regrets deep below the surface of my own pysche. I had a foolish sense of optimism, seeing the red flags that were shown to me clear as day, steady trying to convince myself that red was my favorite color for a reason. They were unsure of their own selves, they dealt with their own wounds, their own issues, and unseen “demons”. They were under major pressure, dealing with heavy issues, and were severely under healed. I had pictured in my own mind what my ideal relationship was, I would use them to try and fit the fantasy that I had constructed in my own mind. In reality, none of them fit the profile.

The healing was slow, I felt like I couldn't pull myself out of a funk without him, and it sucked. This mindset only made me realize just to what extent that I put onto that man within my own mind. In my mind, he was supposed to be my savior, he was supposed to be the one that I ran to in times of need. Hoping that he would care about me how I imagined he could in my mind. I wanted him to do what I would do for him, hold me inside of his arms, I wanted him to love me, unconditionally. Foolish me, he wasn't designed to be my savior, he couldn't save himself. I wanted him to make my days feel like an illusion, make my nights feel like a whirlwind of passion and vulnerability. That was my fourth mistake, using the presence of someone else to find the light and excitement within my own life.

However, even months later, he stuck to me, no man before him had ever had the effect on me that he had.On my days that weren't the best, he had the ability to make it worst. Like a vulture picking at my emotions, not in a prolonged way like he used to, but in a short term , quick wave of sadness, quick pulse of the heart, quick drop of the stomach, asking myself "Am I really over it?" kind of way. I know I wasn’t but I had to be over it. Yet, being told that I needed to "let it go" triggered me in a way. Why? I was triggered by the idea of him moving on, why did I give more chances to others than myself. I had to ask myself, why do I hold more hope for these men than I do for myself? (Was it easier for me to try and put my efforts into changing these men than it was to change myself? Was I running from myself?)

To deal with my own darkness, I had to look within my self. I closed my eyes to the noise and pollution of the outside world. Stillness, grounding, crying, and releasing. I would take two steps forward, three steps back, cry, release, and repeat. To heal the wounds that have been suppressed within my own psyche was foreign to me. To meditate on who I really was, what I've really been through, and who I wanted to be. Why did I accept less? I turned to journaling. Asking myself through a list I labeled:Why did I allow him in? Digging within my own vulnerability, I crushed my own ego. The part of me that swore that my actions weren't a result of something bigger faded away. Within that list I conjured that I was

• lonely/ socially anxious
• had no friends/ a homebody
• craved excitement/ "adventure"
• suffered from guilt and shame
• impulsive/ reckless /angry
• Petrified

I had condemned myself in the comfort of my own shadow for so long that I shied away from rest of the world. Toxic relationships had become the ways for me to escape from the world and myself. It was like finding comfort in the dysfunction of the world, within the dysfunction of myself. I suppressed the logical part of me that would try to speak sense and reasoning to me, that tried to warn me of them. A small part of me thrived in the toxicity, shamed to admit that the issues that these men suffered, made me feel normal. It gave me a comparison that allowed me to thrive in lower vibrations. When I was around them, doing the bare minimum was enough, I didn't have to challenge myself, yet in a twisted way I still recieved the short end of the stick. That was my own mistake to be made, and my own lesson to be learned.

As a result of introspection and healing even on my darkest days, I am still a pillar of light. I want to make others aware, with a hope to save themselves from a destruction that they don't have to put upon themselves when it comes to relationships. It took me years to finally begin to put the pieces together. I like the idea of a man but not in the sense that I needed one. More so, I wanted the love that a man could provide for me. Now, the idea of a man I was once stuck on, moving on with their life doesn't hurt as much. It's the lightest I've felt in a very long time, knowing it doesn't effect me anymore. To know that my worth, experiences, and life is not revolved around others. To feel free, finally. I want a journey of self discovery , self love, and healing for all of those whose yearn for that type of freedom. No more mad cities, no more dirty waters.