So it goes...

Sometimes I feel like there's a hole inside of me, an emptiness that at times seems to burn. I think if you lifted my heart to your ear, you could probably hear the ocean. The moon tonight, there's a circle around it. Sign of trouble not far behind. I have this dream of being whole. Of not going to sleep each night, wanting. But still sometimes, when the wind is warm or the crickets sing... I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for. I just want someone to love me. I want to be seen. I don't know. Maybe I had my happiness. I don't want to believe it but, there is no man, Gilly. Only that moon. 

Needtobreathe at the Electric Factory

Needtobreathe played Philly last month and I of course paid way too much money and went! I got some awesome photos, mainly of Bear, but I did manage a good one of Bo and Seth. Sorry this took me so long to edit and post, but here they all are for your viewing pleasure.

I Have Trust Issues

Big ones. I can't lie about that. I remember when I was little and I used to ask my mom if I could marry my dad when I grew up because than I know I wouldn't grow up to marry a bad man.

Weird, right? I think so. I think I must have been like 6 or 7 when I did that. Compile on years of dating self-absorbed men who lied to me, cheated on me, hurt me, took from me, etc. and it leaves me wanting to move on and find someone to be in a relationship with, but also I find myself stopping short from falling for someone completely again because it's scary to do that. It scares me to give someone that power over me again.

Three days ago, the marine looked me in the eye and told me how he knew we have only known each other for a month, but that he genuinely cared for me, about me. It went right through me and for a big moment scared the living sh*t out of me.

Follow it up with a, "you know I'm not here to hurt you" and I had to choke on my words to stop myself from saying to him, "then what are you here for?"

And I thought my romantic sensibilities had been unscathed with everything that I've gone through.

Here we are though, four years later and for the first time in that time, someone is interesting me enough to let him in despite it all. 

Between Me and You

All I waited for

Was a chance to make you understand

And tell you these forgotten truths you never thought were real

And if the world should turn its back, you know that I'm still here

Time won't ever steal my soul

We're not broken, so please come home

Morning comes, and life moves on

And when it changed, you didn't know you belong

And I'll still catch you when you fall through a past that steals your sleep

And scroll these words upon your wall remind you to believe

Time won't ever steal my soul

We're not broken, so please come home

And if the world has worn you down

I'll be waiting, so please come home

I won't let them break you down

And I won't hear the empty sounds

I'm hopelessly pretending that I know the answer

Angel's light and neon fires that burn so cold through your desires

And all you are is all I need to know

When the world is insane

You get used to the pain

And you don't even know what you feel

And I am like you, all alone and confused

But you know it's not forever

Time won't ever steal my soul

And we're not broken, so please come home

And if the world has worn you down

I'll be waiting, so please come home

Coming Up For Air

I've been immersed in a dream world for the past month. It's been really nice.

But at the same time, I went missing among my friends which you really shouldn't do, but when you meet someone that you connect with, you tend to do it anyway.

Especially when he does things like whispering Ernest Hemingway into your ear and whenever he has food in his hand, he'll split it in two so you both can share it.

But, I reemerged last night into the land of my old ways and I went out for the night where I ate bad for you food, had a few drinks and talked with my girlfriend about boys. Well, really for me about one boy and she proclaimed, "you're like becoming that couple."

And really, that wouldn't be so bad if we were anyway.

My feelings this time, are very different than they have been for other people in the past. But, it's not a scary thing, in fact, it's more liberating in a sense. I don't feel the need to worry about him lying to me, or about what he's doing or who he's with. And I'm free to do as I please too, but at the end of the day my favorite place to be is with him, even if it's just me reading a book and watching him write a paper.

Life is Funny

So I have not made it a big secret that I have been actively dating since January. I got so into it again and was like, I am just ready for something wonderful to come into my life and so I am going to keep putting myself out there until it finally happens for me.

Enter another band boy with no direction who just wanted to be around when it was convenient and fun, but when things began to turn towards the "relationship" he spoke of, he disappeared because he was "scared." So, this time I stopped waiting and I went out with the pre-law student who was actively pursuing my attention and who I kept  turning down because I have never been the kind of girl that dates more than one guy at a time.

Only I got so fed up with band boy that I accepted the date and the date turned from coffee to dinner and before either of us knew it, it was 5 hours later and we would have still been talking but we both had work to do for school. And he kissed me and I let him - on the first date. I have NEVER allowed that one to happen, ever. It was sweet though and I began to warm to him.

In comes the whirlwind of being together every night since we met. Meeting his mother, his siblings, their partners - going to his extended family's for Orthodox Easter. Laughing, and talking all night about our lives where we've been where we want to go, to stealing kisses and holding hands to having him read literature to me in the cutest, most nervous of ways to catching him staring at me when he thinks I'm not looking and then again when I am to finding out all of the similarities between where we've been, who we are and what we both want.

"We're romantics, Katherine and that's the thing about us, we aren't much good unless our partner has similar sensibilities."

And then you swoon a little bit and think, could this actually be someone getting me for me and not what I do for them or what they want from me?

And then he takes you to see Titanic 3-D on the 100th anniversary of the sinking because he's just as obsessed with that part of history as you are. And you relish in his nerdiness that he remembered that and wanted to spend his Saturday with you.

Because you seem to be believing him and feel things beginning to build and maybe it freaked you out a little bit when he sat telling you stories about his deployment and his dog tags and how in the Marines they take one of your tags and put it in your mouth so they can ID you when you reach the morgue. You freak out a little on the inside because you have that thought that that could have been him and he would have been dead several years ago and if that had been the case, you never would have met and a part of you gets sad over that.

And in that moment he actually sense that and stops talking, takes you by the face and tells you how that didn't happen to him, that he was here now to kiss you and tell you stories. And he does.

And deep down, you just start to hope that this isn't all a bunch of bs this time.

The Idealistic, Sensitive Dreamer

It is a blustery spring day in New Jersey today. I'm sitting in the chaos of my bedroom that I have been heartedly trying to organize and purge stuff from. I can hear my mom downstairs vacuuming and exclaiming, "this really is a nifty little crumb catcher," as she vacuums up the dog hair from the stairs.

I face my past on Monday and it has been messing with me since I was informed of my need to appear on Thursday. I stood in my driveway trembling and trying not to cry because it was a year ago this week that The Bad Boy had happened to me. A year ago that it took a lot of inner strength, my best friend from college and Tom to help me get completely out of it and away from him, but now I have to face him and in that moment, I felt the terror wash over me again.

The terror that I felt last summer when I would lay in bed awake at night waiting because I knew it wasn't over just because I got out. I knew he wasn't going to forget that I did not let him get away with it. That summer, I worked at a school that was a street over from him. Everyday I would walk out to my car and everyday I would wonder if that was going to be the day I would see him. Thankfully, I never did, but my nerves were raw by the end of August.

And I've been raw for the past couple of days. This is the final battle and then it is over and I will never have to deal with it again, but it just brought a lot back. Ironically, it brought a lot of good in today too.

I woke up to a nice card from my aunt and uncle, my mom and I had a good talk, I made up with a friend and then as I was folding and putting away laundry, I just felt filled with love again.

And then the thought that I have overcome a lot, especially in recent years and I love the person I have become because of it. Instead of turning angry and rage-filled, I feel as though I held on to the romantic side of me that believes in love, hope and that one day everything will be good again. It's flowered off and in many ways healed me and today as I stood folding laundry, I thought how wonderful that is to have all of that inside of me despite everything and how one day, I would like to give that to someone special who in turn loves and adores me for it and is willing to protect that part of me from a world that does not always make it all that easy to be the idealistic, sensitive dreamer.