if i will ever get it right.

Every once and a while there are these boxing matches where one person just doesn’t stand a chance. They are usually the most spirited and stubborn. Popping back up every time they are knocked down, when really everyone is thinking they should just stay down.

I’m like that with love. But unfortunately unlike a movie pugilist, my tale doesn’t end with the underdog victory. I just get knocked the fuck out. Every time.

I just spent the better part of this afternoon blinking back tears while telling someone I was falling for to go back to the mother of his children. Why? Because it was the right thing to do. And while I was thrilled to finally meet someone with a stable job and a kind loving heart since…well since Melbourne, he wasn’t for me. The good ones never are. And though he had convinced himself that he could be with other people, I had to stop him from adding to his jar of hearts and direct him to where he belonged.

This year has hollowed me out. I get the liars the cheaters the take advantagers or the ones who are just a little too rapey for my liking. I get men who invite me to stay and then kick me out in the middle of the night because ‘they can’t sleep.’ I get men who call because they perceive my life purpose as their sex doll.

Today I was told ‘you’re an amazing woman’ and ‘you should do this (counseling) for a living’ and that I could help people. I know this is true. I can see directly to the heart of other peoples problems and kindly gently help them towards their better selves. But this physician cant heal herself. When I enter relationships people come to all sorts of realizations. They feel light, they have a renewed sense of purpose. But it never benefits me. I sit alone in my apartment with a bottle of red. Like a super hero who weakens every time they use their powers, I’m tapped out.

I mourn each like/love affair. Sometimes it takes drugs, sometimes it takes trysts, sometimes time. But every time I keep getting back up, like a masochist. In reality I should just stay down.

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Multimedia blog project Red Plastic Heart seeks submissions We are looking for: letters, emails, texts, wall post, art, video, music, mix tape/cd covers and projects received from or made for a lover, crush or partner. Submissions can include non-romantic correspondence, notes, angry emails, secret admirer letters, radio dedications or photographs. This is a project designed to capture the awkwardness, beauty, quirkiness, passion, humor, frailty and rage that love and affection brings about in us. Each submission will need to include a 400 word intro We are also looking for creative non-fiction first person pieces about amorous encounters. This could include everything from one night stands to wedding night stories. Email submissions to: RPH.blog@gmail.com For snail mail submissions send an email description of items to be mailed and email instructions will follow.

I would say maybe 75% of my adulthood I have not had health insurance. Which has often meant suffering through extended illnesses and injuries in order to avoid the hefty cost of healthcare. It’s dehumanizing, depressing and for me with little to no familial support often isolating. Without universal healthcare (like Canada) many Americans become gravely ill or even die as a result of cost prohibitive or hard to access care.

What’s my point? On an individual level I have a friend right now who is suffering through an illness and needs help. Dan Savage writes about it more eloquently here.

My immediate hope is that a community of compassionate people will all chip in to help support my friend and help him get back to making music. In the long run I think instances like this and those portrayed in Sicko remind us all that we need to fight for a system that doesn’t just let those without money die.

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I’ve been blueing the walls of my apartment all week. I needed a change. And now my space is vibrant but soothing. It reminds me of the kind of blue you find on relaxed islands in the carribean. I think that has got to be good for me.

I have a work laptop that I can bring home now. Three days after getting the laptop one of the mags I used to freelance for offered me a chance to write again. This makes me want to score more gigs. This is one area where being jaded by love helps. I can just distract myself with work now.

i’m here blogging and killing an hour. i have been thinking about my father. wondering how he got to be how he is. selfish and lonely always seeing what he can take, and how he can use people. drinking himself to numbness. i wonder if that will be me after several more years of having a heart that’s like an open wound. will i be drinking and fucking and using too. anything other than having to face myself and my own consciousness.

i guess i have been thinking about parenting and absence. is it better to be a parent that is terrible and present or have an absent parent? when i came back to the US i thought i was going to come back to this family base, my uncle and my father. but my father is a bit of a dick sometimes and my uncle is busy. i don’t know where my biological mother is and inviting my father back into my life is a bad idea.

all the siblings i am close to live far away. and my friends cant be my everything. i have been told that i am strong. i have made it through a lot. i don’t feel so strong right now. i feel like a little girl trying to play grown up in a lonely apartment. i feel like i have a frame but nothing to put in it. i wonder if i will be a great aunt or godmother but never a mother. i want so much to be the parent i never got to have.

i was talking to my coworker. she has had dozens of men ask her to marry them. no one has ever asked me. no one has lasted longer than three years. i leave behind me a trail of broken hearts. i wonder if i will be my father. will bourbon be my mother singing me lullabies and helping me sleep.  will the real me get buried as i retreat into myself. will i have cracks in the corner of my eyes and silver hair but still have have my 30 year old mind.

i’m carved out and no one wants a shell. so i guess it’s time to write.

i am not good at being alone. i come home to an empty apartment. if i am not distracting myself with TV or going to the gym then i spend an overwhelming amount of time feeling lonely. i need a therapist of course. but among other things i need to get over my guilt. the guilt about trying to move on. the guilt of letting go. i know that a miracle is not going to happen. as much as i wish it to be true, my panda is never going to come for me. he is too tied into his life at home and i am happy for him. happy for him to move on and create a happy life for himself. i just wish i wasn’t so guilty feeling and sad.

My friend celebrated her sweet 16 today. 16 years of sobriety. On the day Amy Wine house dies at 27 under mysterious circumstances. It’s a weird day today. I went to the gym and helped a former lover with his resume. I came home and fell asleep thinking I was going to a party tonight with my friend who always flakes. So when she flaked.tonight it was unsurprising. So now I am nursing a terribly made Tom Collins in a hipster bar alone. Trying to have fun.