thesanguineparadise

[thesanguineparadise]

Going Home

the sanguine paradise blog post 4

I miss home. I miss South Florida, with its palm trees and angry drivers and good Cuban food and terracotta roofs. I never thought I would, but I guess almost three years of mainly living in Tallahassee would make anyone homesick.

Me and my mother don't exactly have the best relationship right now. I keep a lot from her, I always keep her at a distance. At least, that's a new development. Before I left for college, I would tell her everything. It bothered me at first that, once I came to university, she insisted I open up to her more, but now I miss our ease. It feels strained, like I built my walls so high she can't climb them anymore.

This summer, she came to me crying one night in August because I've been so reserved and mean to her. It's like I couldn't stop myself from blowing up at her at every turn. She didn't deserve it all, I don't know where my anger came from. I didn't have the easiest childhood, but I have a new lens now since I have more information and world knowledge, and I can say it's not all her fault. I can't exactly be mad at her for things I've already accepted long ago. That would be a cop out.

***

My neighbor lost her father a few days ago. We are really close with that neighbor, so she's been keeping us in the loop about her and her family's state. I can empathize with her a bit because I also lost my father, but I think losing a parent when you're a child versus when you're an adult is a very different thing.

It makes me think about my mother's mortality. How, at any point, she could just die. I don't know how I would survive. I would be physically on this earth, but mentally I would check out. Without my mother, I wouldn't really have anything to look forward to. Without her, I don't think anyone else prioritizes me mainly or loves me enough to really fight for me. At least, no one could do it like a mother could.

When I think about it in that way, it makes all my gripes and reservations and walls crumble down. They're so meaningless. Everything is so meaningless except for the people you love. That's why I like going home. It brings me back to reality, away from all the situationships and cigarettes and alcohol and classes and other things that don't feel totally real. When I go home, I get to actually contemplate my life and visit the people I love and go on drives and see the terracotta roofs and for one moment just breathe.

***

I lost my virginity last Friday to the man I am so head over heels in love with who I don't think feels the same way for me. I don't regret it, I'm relieved I lost it to someone I love and am attracted to, but I won't lie, it is a loss.

My virginity was kind of a part of my soul, in a way. Some people say it's a construct, and it is, but it was important to me either way. I didn't want to give it to just anyone. I always thought I would give it to a boyfriend, but as the years rolled by, I kind of lost hope. So, losing it on a random Friday just felt a little odd to me. I'm also dealing with the fact that I'm accepting my love for a man (the topic of my last blog post) and that both is so lovely and so scary. I'm never sure if things can just end abruptly or continue for a long time.

I feel like I need to hyperventilate into a paper bag, but I just write and try to do homework instead. I need to get out of my room. I need to leave Tallahassee for a few days. I need to go home.

***

I cannot wait to hug my mother and cry into her arms and drive past the terracotta roofs.

[thesanguineparadise]

current mood

[thesanguineparadise]

I Love Him

the sanguine paradise blog post 3

I am in love with a man who cannot give me love back. I don’t know his reasoning for it. I haven’t asked him. This is the first time in my life that I ever am allowing myself to actually feel love for a man. It feels beautiful, but it’s so tragic. I have a feeling that the last time I will ever speak to him will soon come, that our conversations will dwindle into a nothingness, that our nights together will turn to morning and he will drop me off one day for the last time. Maybe the last time I saw him was the last time, but I do not know that. 

I would do anything for this man. This is the first time that I hope someone is genuinely going to be okay, I care about his well-being. I want to take care of him, and I want him to see me as someone he can come to. I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. I have walls, and I believe he has walls too. Maybe he has another girl who does it for him. Another girl he loves. Or maybe he’s not ready for anything, or maybe he simply just does not like me in the same way. These thoughts make me sick, but it doesn’t make me love him any less. 

I wish he could one day love me back. That, one day, we could be together. But it’s such a casual arrangement. It started with dates, then dates going into sleepovers, then just sleepovers. I feel his effort seeping away, and I’m left to grasp at straws. I’m the one making plans, and he cancels most of the time. And when we are together, our guards are up more than ever. Why? It hurts so much, I want our ease of conversation back.  All these things should make me run, but I haven’t. It’s like I’m stuck in place. 

For the first time in my life, I am accepting my feelings of love for a man. In a way, this is the first time I’ve ever truly been in love. It is such a wonderful, but haunting feeling. I know it’s not directed at the right guy for me, I know this is temporary; my heart is already cracking, getting ready for the break. I know this is going to hurt me more than anything I’ve ever experienced. I’m staring at the treacherous waters and I am willingly choosing to jump right in instead of running away. This is my most stupid act of bravery. 

Of course, I hope that we will be okay. That, maybe one day, he could admit to liking me in the same way I like him. Maybe we could try. I would like to believe in that future. No guy has ever come back. I hope he does. I really love this man. But I know he isn’t mine, and he never saw me as his. I know I will eventually have to let him go, as I fear he is already letting me loose. 

I hope that, one day, I can feel this same love (if not an even deeper love) for another. Except, next time, it’s reciprocated. I hope that sometime in the future I go home to that person, crawl onto their lap and laugh or cry or do whatever, and they will feel safe doing the same with me. 

I love him. I love him.

[thesanguineparadise]

Be Nicer To The Memory Of Your Younger Self

the sanguine paradise blog post 2

I was a total nerd in high school. I brought a briefcase (along with a full backpack) to school every day and, because of my raging Harry Potter obsession, wore a Slytherin lanyard and had a Slytherin backpack. I was a know-it-all and was always raising my hand in class. I didn't have many friends, but the ones I did have, I feel are going to be my forever friends. Because I was hopped up on 30 mg of Vyvanse, I was also extremely stoic and, by my senior year, extremely depressed because I felt I had no purpose in life.

Overall, I was a mess. And not really one that you can easily romanticize.

When I got to college and got "cooler" I immediately started dogging on my high school self. I hated my past goody-two-shoes nature and wanted to shed every last bit of my former self in order to fit into my new party school's aesthetic. And I did. And I was still lonely, and still miserable, because I wasn't being true to myself.

Three years into college, I realize that the little know-it-all nerd from high school still lives within me, and probably takes up a larger part of my soul than I'd care to admit. I don't know if she'd be happy with how I'd turn out, but I think we're both going to have to reluctantly accept each other.

I also realized that no matter how hard I made fun of my past self, that I still love her a lot. Me and my past self are the only two people who went through the same things as I: our first crush, our dad's death, and our not-so-secret Lana Del Rey obsession. She is a piece of me. I know she no longer is here, but she still exists. She is still me. And by me hating my past self, isn't that me just admitting that I hate myself? In five years, am I going to talk about the me from today in the same light? I hope not.

I want to be happy. I want to love all parts of myself, no matter how socially awkward and un-romanticizable.

This is a short blog post because I just needed to get this off my chest.

[thesanguineparadise]

My Father Needed To Die

the sanguine paradise blog post 1

...

When I was twelve years old and my dad was doing my math homework for me, there was a prevalent voice in my head: my father, the brilliant man who got his doctorate in political science and is highly esteemed, will die before I turn 19.

Turns out I didn't need to wait that long, he died probably less than a year after that thought. Yes, it turned my life around. No, I obviously wasn't surprised. I've been trying to come to terms with my grief ever since. I cry sometimes, I miss him, I wish I could have conversations with him.

But, at twenty years old, almost eight years after his death, I feel relief. For him, death was the only good option.

...

Like I said, my father was brilliant, and always had been. Before I was born, he got his phd from the University of Florida and lived in Zimbabwe for three years doing research on the political implications of animal poaching, or something. Apparently, this work was so impressive that he soon after secured a teaching position at Florida International University as a professor of political science, where he speedily was granted tenure. Somewhere in between, he met my mom, who was a (I know how this sounds) student in one of his classes.

This is not the father I knew. All of his accolades are like fairytales to me, neatly bound in pretty books that you put back on shelves. They're nice to read about, but so distant from what's actually reality that you're fine with letting the stories collect dust.

The father I knew, and saw every weekend due to divorce agreements, was a recluse. There were cockroaches and rats in the house. He let me eat and do whatever I wanted, but only because he was too out of it to not be neglectful of me. He was a raging alcoholic, and even though he was never outwardly wasted around me, it deteriorated him to the point he went into a deep, dark depression that ultimately defined him until the very end.

There were soft moments in between where we mutually remembered we were supposed to do father-daughter things together. I could ask him any question and it would turn into a three hour conversation. We collected rare coins together, and watched history documentaries at night (I was on my iPad because I didn't care, but it's the thought on both our ends that counts).

He died on Memorial Day 2017. A heart attack that immediately ended his life.

...

I think it's for the best that he died. Another absolute truth about my father is that he was a narcissist who never admitted he had a problem. He was abusive (not to me, but to my mother before they divorced). By the last decade of his life, he had no friends and none of his students knew anything about him.

Through all of this, the only thing he had was me. But not even that would help him. He loved me, maybe, but he hated himself more.

I have empathy for him. I know what depression feels like, especially depression marred by addiction. Even though I only got a glimpse of what it feels like, the currents of hopelessness feel never-ending. The only reason I got out of it is because my mother wouldn't let me go under like he did, and I didn't hate myself so much that I wouldn't listen to her.

But, for him? I imagine death was the sweetest option for him. He would've spent the rest of his life the absolute same, and I would've grown up to see the real him. If he were still alive, seeing how he leads his life would hurt me more. I would take a million Memorial Day 2017s than an alternate universe where he is still alive to continue emotionally hurting me, my mother, and his mother.

And, in a universe where he's still alive right now, what if I found him in a drunk daze and tried to help him? What if, now that I'm 20 and not a child, he would've swung at me like he did my mother?

I don't know if death is the best option for other people, but for my father, I believe it was.

...

I know all those things are probably bad to say. I never thought about the fact that I'm glad he's dead until about two weeks ago, and I haven't been able to think about much else since.