elvensapphire1237

[elvensapphire1237]

A lot of people were worried that we were together because we needed each other.  They thought we were too dependent on each other, and we were forced to prove them wrong and demonstrate our independence by striking out on our own and building our lives separate from each other.

This has been torture.

I understand what they meant, and I know that this time apart has been necessary and allowed us to grow in ways that we would not likely have grown had we stayed side by side.  However, this isn’t how we are meant to be, and it is certainly not how I want to stay. If being apart has taught me anything, it is this:

I do need you. 

Let me be clear; I don’t need you like I need air to breath.  I don’t need you like water, or food, or sunshine and vitamins.  I need you like long walks and petting my cat.  I need you like warm blankets on a cold day and hot tea on a chilly morning.  I need you like chocolate and coffee, like friendly encounters and visiting the beach or mountains. I need you like a gentle breeze or the soft rain.  I need you like I need gentle hugs and laughs from my chest.  No, you are not vital to my survival, but you are vital to something much more important: my soul. I don’t need you to survive; I need you to live.

[elvensapphire1237]

I want to be cared for. To be well and truly cherished. For my needs and wants and desires to be put first instead of saved for last. I want to be valued and respected. I want to breathe and stop trying to hold everything together....if just for a moment, I want to give control to someone else and let go of all the threads of my life that have been slowly tearing me apart. I want peace and gentleness. I want someone to put aside their troubles so they can recognize mine. I do it so often for others...won't someone please do it for me? I simply want to be loved as much as I love others.

[elvensapphire1237]

[elvensapphire1237]

The Things I Wish I Could Say pt.2

Would you even try if I stopped trying so hard?  If I didn’t talk to you every day, if I didn’t put so much effort in, would you still try? Would you give up?  Call this all a lost cause?  Would you even try to reach out and see what was wrong?  If I stopped responding, would you even suspect that I was hurt, or would you just assume it was over and that you should give up.   Would you try to see if I was hurt or injured?  Would you be checking the local news for me if I didn’t talk to you for a day? Would you try and find me, just to see if I was alright?  

I would.  I did.  

I worry sometimes that if I stopped trying so hard, you would stop trying at all.  I wish I could trust you to do that, but you have given me very little evidence that you would.  I am usually the one to text first.  I am the one to offer to call.  I am the one checking all of your social media just to see if you are still alive and well and was not a part of some accident.  I am the one always looking on the brighter side of things and finding a solution in the midst of the chaos.  I am the one who stays calm under pressure and makes the rational decisions when things go wrong.

Would you do the same?

I am so scared of messing up and making a mistake.  What if I stop trying?  What if I get too tired?  What if I stop making myself constantly available?  Would you give up?  Would you rationalize that I was always too good for you, and you always knew this would happen?  I would hope that you would fight for me as I have always fought for you, but I’m scared you won’t.  I am exhausted, but I won’t give myself any rest because I am scared that the moment I do, you’ll be gone.  

I’m tired of making all the decisions.  I’m tired of taking care of us.  I’m tired of being the one who is the most mature, who does the research, who take care of the finances, who turns to God, who prays all day, who is positive in the face of difficulty, who admits that life is tough but pulls you up when you are down.  Don’t you see that while you put all your efforts into making money, I am carrying the rest of our relationship?  I keep us emotionally grounded and hopeful for the future while you lament our present and drudge through your efforts to make money.  Your efforts all seem to stem from me and my ability to keep you motivated. Don’t you see that I need help with these things too?

I know you’re trying. I know this is hard.  Don’t you see this is hard for me too?  Don’t you see me struggling to work, pay my bills, grow my faith, love my family, keep up with my friends, plan for my future, all while maintaining a relationship with you?  I know its hard, but that never stopped me from making sure you know you are loved.  I know this situation sucks, but that never stopped me from sending you encouragement. I know you miss me, but that never stopped me from looking on the bright side.  I know you’re tired, but that never stopped me from staying up for hours just to see that you have read my texts….and then never replied.  

I try so hard to take so many things off your shoulders.  I try to manage as many things as I can.  I juggle my own life then try to see if I can juggle anything for you so you can stop dropping balls.  I try so hard to make your life easier, but you still seem to struggle with what’s left behind.  It is human to struggle, but I wish you would try just a little bit harder so that I can finally get some rest.  I know you have a lot on your plate, but so do I.  Don’t I deserve some time to be weak?  I am no more perfect than you, but I have forced myself to such a high standard that you believe me infallible.  I’m not…I am at my breaking point, and I don’t know what to do.  

I need your help but am scared you won’t be able to handle yourself and me.  So, I hide away my weaknesses and force down my tired and scared. I paint on a smile and force my hope. How could I do any less when so uncertain?  You are strong, my love.  But are you willing to be strong enough for the both of us?  

[elvensapphire1237]

The Things I Wish I Could Say

My love...there is so much I wish I could say to you and so much I’m not sure I should say.

I am angry with you.  For more often than I wish I was.  You do things, you make decisions, you say things, and I wish you wouldn’t.  I laugh and smile and brush it off because I think that I should, that I shouldn’t get angry over something like that, but I think about it later and get angry anyway and wish, wish with all my heart, that I had said something earlier but that it is too late now to say it.  

So, these are some of the things I wish I could say.  

You embarrass me some days. I feel I can’t talk about you in front of my family because anything I say about you will be met with ridicule and objection.  I want to talk about you, I want you to be a part of my life in every aspect, but I feel I can’t because of the things you have done.  

You have grown so much and developed in so many ways.  You have done so well in overcoming different obstacles, but there are some things you seem content to simply stay in.  There are some habits you refuse to drop.  Some behaviors you don’t feel are a problem, when they really are dangerous or wrong.  

You let your mind poison you. You let the negativity and bitterness of life live rent free in your mind.  You talk about taking your own life like it was nothing.  You talk about being done trying like you never promised to always try.  You talk about being overcome by a situation as if you weren’t just boasting about never quitting.....you allow yourself to poison your own mind like it isn’t a precious and easily influenced thing.  The more you think and talk like this, the more those things become true.  You don’t fight these words and thoughts, instead you leave it up to me to fight those battles while you feed and shelter the demons trying to end you.  I cannot fight an enemy you are helping to survive.  I have barely kept them back in my own mind and am already exhausted. How can you ask me to fight yours too?  

I know you help me with my inner demons, and it is okay to ask for help.  I am more than willing to help you in your time of need as you have helped me in my time of need, but how can you expect me to fight an enemy you call friend?  You say they are an enemy; you tell me you plan to fight them, but then you go and make them comfortable in your mind and defend them when I try to make them leave.  God calls us to empty our mind of evil and fill it instead with good, but you fill your mind with things that are dark and evil and wonder why the good things do not stay?  Good does not tolerate evil and when darkness is at home in your mind, good will not remain there with it. 

I worry that you defend these wrong things because you have given up on ever becoming good.  I fear that you have become so comfortable, so validated, in what you do wrong that you do not believe you could ever, or even should ever, become anything different.  You surround yourself with those who share your bad habits and defend your friendship with them by saying you intend to help them overcome those failings.  My love…you have not overcome those failings yet and they are entirely unwilling to overcome those failings in themselves.  You are neither helping them nor helping yourself.  You are only eliminating the guilt associated with those failings by surround yourself with people who do not hold you accountable for those actions. 

I know you have a generous and kind heart and that is likely a reason that you are drawn to those who are not conventionally lovable.  I admire that about you.  However, you are so desperate to try and gain their love and trust that you sacrifice your own happiness, self-respect, and any progress you made as a person.  You try so hard to fit in that you make yourself less of a person just to be accepted.  My love, you are a kind, strong, beautiful human being.  You are a diamond smearing yourself in mud so you can be accepted by those who are content to stay in the dirt without ever attempting to shine.

I don’t want to be so harsh with them, but all I have ever seen them do was make bad decisions and encourage you to make bad decisions with them.  I do not believe they care about you.  I believe they only care about what you can do for them.  They do not seem kind, nor do they seem to want to lift you up.  They don’t seem to want you to succeed, and they seem to care very little about their own success either.  Why would you wish to be accepted and loved by those who care so little about themselves and others?  You are so much more, but you allow yourself to be dragged down and then make a place for yourself in the dirt as if you didn’t have the wings to fly.  Only those who are cursed by evil crawl on their bellies on the ground.  God made you to fly on wings like eagles.  You are not evil my love. 

You have so much potential for greatness, but you refuse to see it in yourself.  You are too proud to ask for help but too insecure to believe you are good.  You want people to help you but refuse to ask for help.  You want to succeed but are afraid of getting your hopes up in case you fail.  You want to trust in God but do not put in the effort to have faith.  You say you don’t deserve me but do little to better yourself to be worthy of me.  You have become so comfortable in doing the bare minimum to survive while also hating where you are in life.  You rely on me for my help while also hating to accept my help.  Sometimes I even think, for a moment, that you are trying to drag me down with you because I refuse to give up on you even when you give up on yourself. 

I want to support you.  I love you.  I want you to have success in all that you do.  I want to see you flourish and share that prosperity with others.  I want you to be proud of what you have accomplished and confident in the type of person you are and full of faith and hope for the future….but you seem to fight every turn towards improvement.  I ask you to develop yourself, make changes to your habits, alter your way of thinking in order to better yourself and you let me help you….for a little while.  But then you turn back to the same destructive habits that hurt you as if they are your saving grace.  They won’t save you.  They lie and give you temporary relief, but they take far more than they will ever give.

I don’t mean to be harsh with you and I understand that all these thoughts and feelings may not be true, but they are things I think and feel and the effort of holding them back has simply become too much.  You told me not long ago that I had become desperate and was now willing to put up with more.  You sounded almost happy about that.  It scared me.  Especially since the opposite is true.  I am desperate.  I am wanting to be with you so much it hurts.  But that simply means I am at my breaking point and too much disappointment and failure now will break me….and not even you could hold together my broken pieces then.  

[elvensapphire1237]

[elvensapphire1237]

You do not know it my love, but you made my mirror magic...

On the day I felt low, lower than dirt, like an abominable failure, I thought of you. I felt like the ugliest, most worthless thing, bit I knew you would find worth in me, even when I couldn't see it. As I hid in the corner like I was once again 16 and overwhelmed with life's problems, I prayed for your voice, for your love to rescue me.

And you did.

Though circumstance stopped us from being side by side, as soon as you could, you told me to walk to my mirror and look at the reflection. You told me "See that? That is beautiful."

While some might argue the word "that" is not the most apt term to use in the moment, I appreciate that as well. It reminded me not only that I was beautiful, but also that I am not my body. The same that I am not my flaws or imperfections. The same that my entire identity is not held by one feature. This part of me, the body I had grown to hate, was called beautiful. I am not my body, and my body is not me, but my body is beautiful and not to be ashamed of.

And now, with those wonderful words said, my mirror is magic. The mirror I dreaded and hated, avoided and despaired, is now a beautiful reminder of your love, kindness, and sincerity. No longer do hateful words assault me, now, the only words I hear when I look into the mirror is "That is beautiful" "Do you see that? That is beautiful" "beautiful". My mirror is magic because I feel nothing but love whenever I look into it now.

This is the gift you have given me my love. So I say again, thank you.

[elvensapphire1237]

I suffer silently because I don't want to call attention to my weakness, but believe me, I do suffer.

[elvensapphire1237]

Sometimes I just want to scream into the sky for all the things I cannot fix....

For the hurts I cannot heal, for the friends I cannot rescue, for the injustice I cannot end, for the pain I cannot stop, for the breaths I cannot take, for the time I can't stop, for the life I can't slow, for tasks I can never finish, for the fears I cannot face...

I want to scream, shout, cry, but am afraid to show such a weakness, such vulnerability. Instead I make my skin stone and my eyes daggers and confine my heart to an iron cage, only to be let out on occasions when only those I truly trust are there to protect me in my weakened state.

Even then....how can I let them down like that? They, who believe me, how could I disappoint them so? They believe me strong, capable, determined, and free. How could I expose to them how far I have fallen? The daily battle I fight, not just to live my life, but to simply get out of bed each morning? How can I tell them that my mind races with all the tragedies of life before I fall asleep at night? How could I erase their idea that I am living and well? How could I disappoint them like that?

I want to scream, but I never will. I want to cry, but I will do so quietly. I want to lay in my bed until the earth slows and I can breathe again, but I can't. At least, not for long. Just for a few minutes....before I face the day...just a few minutes if mindless rest....

[elvensapphire1237]

[elvensapphire1237]

[elvensapphire1237]

[elvensapphire1237]

[elvensapphire1237]

There once was a man

In a far off land

Who thought himself boring

And altogether bland

He was grey and beige

Nothing set him apart

So he kept to the shadows

And stayed in the dark

The man was lonely

Very sad and glum

Until the day

He stepped out in the sun

He found he was not bland

He was a sight to behold

What he thought was grey and beige

Was in fact silver and gold

[elvensapphire1237]

[elvensapphire1237]

“Above all that is happening to you today, choose love. Love embraces. Love assumes the best. Love dares to hold to truth even when it’s hard. Love is a good gift to offer. Love is a decision we make because it so beautifully reflects what Jesus has told us to do. To be. To exude. To those who love us and to those who don’t.”

— Lysa TerKeurst

[elvensapphire1237]

A king can demand respect in his castle only until he is taken to gallows for his tyranny