Letting Go of Jim

I have loved Jim since the first time I heard his cautious, baritone voice say hello to me.  There was a gentleness to his voice that I had never heard before and haven’t heard since.  A genuine kindness that has become a rarity in our cruel world.

Jim was captivating in every facet imaginable.  His complexion was that of a native American, Spaniard, Italian, and a white American. His eyebrows were thick as a dense forest. His skin dark and as clear as the sky on a sunny day and his smile was contagious. When Jim smiled, you smiled.   

His exquisite skin was complemented by a 6 foot tall, proportionate figure and a heart that could melt lava away.  Jim was everything that any girl could ever want.  But he never knew it.

I was twelve when I fell in love with Jim.  And I was fifteen when I moved away from him.

Jim and I “dated” in middle school.  We sat next to each other on the bus and shared many stories about our lives. He was encouraging and helpful in any endeavor I had at the time.

But one day Jim kissed me and I panicked.  It was the most painful thing I have ever felt in my entire life.  A pain felt so deep inside that all I could do was to run away.  I was in awe of everything in my life; confused and terrified.  Why did his lips upon mine feel so ideal, so perfect?  Why was my stomach on spin cycle?

When I broke up with Jim a short week later, his devastation was obvious and heartbreaking.  His dark brown eyes filled with tears as he looked down at me and asked me why.  With his soft hand upon my face, I lied to him. Whatever lie I told him was not enough to justify the horrific truth I hid behind.  He was so hurt I could hear his heart shattering as it hit the ground.  

My world unraveled after my breakup with Jim.

Up until that point in my life the only lips to have ever graced mine were my sisters. The only sexuality I had ever known was female.  What is this feeling I had developed for a man?

I began a long journey of questioning my own sexuality.  I put all my hate into the one guy in school that everyone knew was gay.  And I didn't talk to Jim. I avoided him at all costs.  I knew I had hurt him and I just couldn't bear the angst.

As it was, Jim and I attended the same high school and of course had the same classes.  We grew close again through band practice and performances.  I felt myself loving Jim more than I even loved myself, but I never told him. I was too afraid.  I knew I would let him down and I couldn't bear seeing the hurt on his face.

I moved away from Jim a quarter of the way through Freshman year.  We both cried when I told him and at that point I knew that more than anything else in the world, I did not want to leave him.  My home was in his arms and I was being ripped from it.

Throughout high school, Jim and I chatted on occasion.  Once I got to see him at the airport when he was flying through Chicago.  At 16 I got to hold his hand again and see his face. It was amazing how happy we were to see each other and I couldn't have cared less who stared at us.  My Jim was with me.  But I was still too afraid to tell him how I felt.  By then we were too far apart to have a relationship and I knew that my troubled past was just baggage.  Jim needed to be happy.

Less than a year after I last saw Jim, he met his current wife.  I can vividly remember the excitement in his voice as he spoke about her. He told me all about her bubbly personality and her lust for life.  I sobbed for days after that.  I knew that I would never be able to go back and get him back. My window of opportunity had closed.

With my window closed, a new window and life opened for Jim.  For a while I hated the girl and I didn't even know her or anything about her.  I just knew that she was Jim's and he was hers.  And I despised it.  I had been replaced and had no way to fight.  I was too weak.

As Jim and I continued to talk, I learned much about this woman; she was an absolute angel.  She had a down to earth, fun loving personality and shared just about everything in common with Jim.  I didn't know this woman, but through Jim I learned that she was amazing.  Celibate to their wedding day, the commitment they made was set in stone.

A part of me died when I read of their engagement on Facebook; their beautiful, classic engagement.  I was so mad of what could have been.  If I could have just been a better person.  A person who wasn't confused about their own life and didn't use self harm as a safe haven for saneness. A person who was normal.

I questioned so many things about myself before realizing that Jim did love me once.  He loved me for me and would have accepted any demons inside me. But I was too confused and too afraid to see it, so I ran away.

Even today, in my most extreme jealousness of this beautiful, talented woman who married my very first love, I have been forced to learn I need to let go.  If Jim loved me, then someone else can.  It has taken too many years to learn that if I can just love an accept myself, I can be happy too.

If you can gather anything from this story, reader, gather that life does move on.  People move away and get separated. They learn to pick up and carry on.  Some just take longer than others.  Learn to not live in the past. What is, is, and unfortunately that is final.

Jim will always be my first love.  Unconventional at best because he never knew how deeply I felt, but still my first love.  And our non-colliding worlds still move on.

-M

The Big Let Down

WARNING:  The following story contains graphic writing and photos that may trigger compulsions of cutting in some individuals.  Please note that I do not condone my behavior nor am I an advocate for it.

The Big Let Down

I am currently laying on my couch with a paper towel pressed against my leg.  That’s right reader, this story is present.  Welcome to my world.  Let us recap.

Although it has been three years since the last time, I still keep a discarded razorblade in the back of my bathroom drawer, hidden away from the view of anyone who might be looking.  Afraid in my own house…really?

I had prepped for this; I slowly walked up the stairs contemplating the act I had planned. I grabbed the hidden razor and a tweezers from the upper left drawer of the vanity and the box of tissue to the right of the sink basin.  Walking back down the stairs equivocated to walking the plank on a pirate ship.  I set the razor and tweezers on the left cushion of my bright red sofa; the box of tissue on the table in front.  As I sat, I scolded myself for forgetting the most important thing…WINE!

I made my way to the kitchen and poured a full glass of Chardonnay from the classy box on the bottom shelf, topped it with an ice cube, and grinned like a leprechaun as I made my way back to the sofa.  GO TIME.  

I examined the bright red Bic razor and fathomed removing the top from the stem.  A simple twist of the head and it was off.  And I imbibed a gulp of wine.

I hesitated as I reached for the tweezers.  Once the blade comes out, there is no stopping the beast that will inevitably take over.  Hesitation didn’t last long.  I had made up my mind in the short trip up the stairs and into the bathroom.  After this many years I have learned that if it is prepped for, it will be done.

PISSED.  The fucking blade wouldn’t pop easily of the casing.  The side casings holding the blades in appeared to be glued.  Thanks Bic.  Bastards.

When this happens, I worry about the risk of bending the blades, but reminisced the fact that all I needed was one.  Carefully, I popped the enclosing sides of the razor off with the tweezers.  The blades loosened.  Meticulously, I grabbed the middle blade with my tweezers and slid it out with ease.

The feeling was everything I remembered and more.  As I slid the blade across my skin, the release of endorphins empowered me.  Cut after cut, I found my solace.

About 10 seconds after each cut, each incision began to pool blood on my leg. Excited, I kept with my rhythm.  Thirty plus lines later, the blood began to drip down my leg.  It was time to stop.

 Photo: Let there be Blood.

Another gulp of wine later, I reached for the box of tissues.  I pulled one out and dropped it upon my leg.  I relished as the blood rapidly seeped through the 2-ply tissue.  The second one I applied did the same thing.  It was like watching live art.

Four tissues later, I realized that the thinness of the 2-ply wasn’t going to be enough.  I could still feel the blood rolling down my thigh.

I sauntered into the kitchen and grabbed a clean washrag from the top drawer to the right of the refrigerator.  I pressed it firmly on my thigh and made my way back to the couch.

Once the blood began to form clots, it was time to clean my wound.  (And if you are asking yourself right now why I would clean a wound that I had just inflicted on myself, the answer is because I didn’t want to inflict an infection.  I am quite content with the pain I have inflicted and know it is not smart to let an infection set in)

I rinsed the rag out in the bathroom sink.  The red water created a magical stream into the drain. I wiped my leg with the rag and went back downstairs to resume watching TV…and drinking wine.

Photo: All Cleaned Up

Welcome back to present time where I am still laying on my couch with a paper towel over my wound.  I am exhausted, spent, and angry.  Three years and here I am back at square one.  Even through all the anger I feel toward myself at this very moment, I think the saddest thing is thinking about how it will feel tomorrow having my jeans rubbing against my fresh cuts and reopening them.  The thought excites me and for that, I remain afraid.  Afraid of myself and what I am capable of.  Afraid that I will relapse again.  Afraid of just being me.

-M

Are you there Reader?

Hello Readers!

Michele here!

At this time I have put up about 6 stories.  I get so excited when I see where you all are visiting from. 

Readers, I have questions to ask you. 

Are you interested in more of my twisted past?

Would you be willing to subscribe?  If no, what about if I posted more.

Can you ask me questions?  Any questions, I will be honest.  Please be honest with me and expect the same in return.

Can you help me get my word out?  I am on facebook – Michele Sholraven.  Find me, let’s be friends.

Thank you, reader, for your support.  Please let me know you are out there!

-M

White Lines

The first time I cut myself I felt relieved.  Why? Because that was the only way I could punish myself for not being who I wanted to be.  I realized I was never going to be gorgeous and skinny.  Self esteem issues mixed with feelings of dumbness pushed me over the edge.  I needed something I could control.  I needed relief.  Cutting gave that to me; it gave me the control I needed.

Bumming around the house one sunny day, I began to feel sorry for myself.  Television was not occupying my mind and all my friends were busy.  My dad was at work, and my mom was “out.”  It was just me, alone in the house.  

Depressed, I walked into the kitchen and pulled out the Cutco paring knife from the top drawer next to the fridge.  This was my answer!  I could finally control something in my life.  Just one little cut and I would feel better. 

My hands shook as I made my way up the stairs to my lonely room.  Each step terrified and excited me.  Was I really going to do this?  Was I really going to cut myself?  When I reached my room and silently tapped the door shut, I had made up my mind.  I felt numb, and finally, I felt scared.

Sitting on my bed, I looked out the window at the children playing hopscotch in the empty cul-de-sac.  Their laughter and high pitched screams depressed me.  “What I wouldn’t give to be a child again,” I thought.

I scrunched my left sleeve to my elbow and examined my arm.  Between my elbow and wrist I found a perfect spot.  It was soft and it would hurt, but it would not hit a vein.  I picked up the knife from my maroon down comforter and took a deep breath.  I placed the knife precisely where I thought it should be, pressed down, and pulled it in toward me.  As the blade left my arm, the blood welled up, but it was not enough.  A second time I placed the knife in the same spot, pushed down, and cut toward me.  Tears of joy left my eyes as the stream of blood spilled onto my lap.  I set the knife down, put a white napkin over my wound, pulled my sleeve down, and replaced the knife to its rightful spot in the drawer to the right of the refrigerator.

 From knives I moved on to razorblades; they left less scarring.  I would pop the blades out of the shaver and use those.  I found razorblades to be better because the cuts were thinner and just as painful (razorblades tend to be sharper than knives).  I also didn’t have to answer questions of where the kitchen knives were anymore.  Razors are a necessity for a girl, so it was easier to hide.  I also moved from my arm to my upper leg so people wouldn’t notice the cuts.  It is amazing what I have done to feel like I can control something.

It has been ten years since I first cut my skin open.  Even now, as a college graduate, knowing what I do is wrong, I cannot escape it.  Cutting is a part of me.  It is who I am.  My scars are who I am.  Each faded white line in my skin reminds me that I still have an outlet for relief. Even when alone, I still have me.

Water Jetzzz

A water jet is like an amateur sex toy.  Ironically, if you were to take it apart, it would totally look like a miniature dildo with a big hole in the end.  I was about five when I first exposed the secret of the water jet. 

My parents had a membership to an exclusive country club outside of town.  They would go play golf and mingle while my sister and I swam with the Stepford children. While they all were doing crazy dives off of the board, I was “exploring” my sexuality.  The jets being by the side of the pool made it easier because it just looked like I was holding onto the side.  Or at least that’s what I told myself.  Did nobody really realize a five year hold humping the water while her eyes rolled backward in ecstasy? W-T-F.

The jets pulsated water at an even rate and the outflow of water was always warm.  It took some time the first time because I had yet to figure out how I needed to move.  Once I figured that out, I was golden!  Going to the pool now was just another way I could get off.

Along the side of the pool I explored every jet that existed; one by one; orgasm after orgasm.   And it never got old.  Sometimes, I would even go home and still have sex with my sister.  She was off in her own world at the pool and I am not sure if she ever even noticed what I was doing.

Like I said, I just could never get enough…I still can’t.

-M

The Big O

After the first time, it was if I couldn’t get enough.  The rush of blood through my veins and the feeling of almost fainting was astounding.  It was the best feeling I ever could have imagined.  It was the most intense feeling I had ever felt up to that point in life and the meaning was beyond the comprehension of a child.  I was about 12 when I learned it was called an orgasm.

O-R-G-A-S-M.  The word that meant pleasure…and it became my everything.  Stuffed animals, pillows, chair arms, blow up kid toys from carnivals, blankets.  You name it...if it was soft, I was fucking it.  The only person who knew was my sister.  I’m not sure if she ever fucked as many inanimate objects as I did, but she did teach me that it was not okay if mom or dad ever found out.

Sex with one another became the norm.  Our ginormous house worked to our advantage as we had a huge play area in the basement.  We had a pool table, a dart board, a closet full of toys and a sofa that easily folded and un-folded. It had no frame so it didn’t make any noise when we let it down or put it back up.

The basement also had a door. My mother would shut it so she couldn’t hear us playing Barbies or video games or whatever we were up to downstairs.  Thanks for making it so easy, Mom. Perhaps instead of talking to random friends about how hard being a mother was, you could have pulled the bottle out of your mouth and spent more time with us.

Our acts were always preceded by the question, “You wanna do it?”  The basement made it easier for me because the guest bedroom had pillows on the bed.  My sister liked to do it bare, crotch on crotch.  I can remember laying there while her hips circled on top of mine.  It would always kind of hurt the bone on the top of my crotch, but I never said anything.  Once we were started, I just wanted to get off.

I almost always went second…and always with a pillow.  I didn’t like to have a bare skin orgasm.  It was as if I knew it was wrong and I justified that the pillow made everything okay.  Instead of circles, I moved up and down/back and forth.  I rarely moved in to kiss her.  It wasn’t because I didn’t know how (because she always kissed me when she was on top), but kissing just didn’t feel natural to me.  Yes, I just said kissing didn’t feel natural.  Know this, reader, we fucked before we ever starting kissing so adding something else sexual to the mix made me a bit uncomfortable.  She brought kissing home after she learned it from a boy at school.

Unfortunately, I have gotten to the point where I can’t write anymore because the alcohol has overly kicked in!

Until next time

-M

Rape

Because rape happens so often, it wouldn’t be such a taboo if it was a man who did it. It wouldn't be hard to explain to a man I was trying to be intimate with.   They would forever understand my situation and would sympathize with me.  To be able to explain (as opposed to hiding) why when I am in bed and flinch because of a certain touch, they would be able to understand from my past why that touch makes me flinch.   They would understand why an orgasm is hard to reach and would be gentle with my needs.  They would understand that it still feels good to me, but that something deep down inside just won’t let it happen.

If I had been raped by a man, everything that is wrong in my life would fit in its right place.  No make-up would be acceptable.  No contacts would be warranted.  Baggy clothes would go un-noticed.  If I had been raped by a man, the copious amounts of medication I have put down my throat might actually help me.  My drinking problem and promiscuity would be explained, and I would have more outlets than I ever thought possible.  The cuts on my legs would be accepted as a coping mechanism and people would want to help me instead of judge me.

In my ideal world, being raped by a man would have changed the core being of who I am to this very day; however, I do not live in my ideal world.  I live in a world surrounded by lies and disappointment.  A world full of random sex with strangers, alcoholism, and a serious nicotine addiction…or perhaps the alcoholism is more serious.  To counteract those horrible acts, I have a severe panic disorder that has created a true homebody.  At 26, I am nobody, but surprisingly, I am going places so fast that my head spins.

I have fought my past for so many years, but I am over my current state of thinking.  It is time to reveal my truth to the world.

Reader…think back to your earliest memory…Do you have it?  Are you three and sitting in a kiddie pool surrounded by loved ones who are enjoying their time with you?  Are you four and having your birthday at Chuck E Cheese with all your friends eating pizza and drinking caffeinated soda?  Are you five and starting your first day of kindergarten, worried that no one will like you?  Where are you if not in a sandbox or swinging on a swing?  My guess is that your earliest memory is something fun, as it should be, because at that age you had so much to learn.

I was five when I created my first memory.  Anything prior to that I unintentionally blocked out.  Every day after early morning kindergarten I went to Mindy Peore’s house.  She had an at home daycare ranging with kinds from birth to 6^th grade.  Walking in her house you could smell old cooked food that seeped a stench of B.O. Mindy had long, stringy brown hair and resembled a look of way too much Sun-In in  during the summer months.  It was almost a golden brown…but an ugly golden brown.

I liked Mindy’s house at first.  She gave us all treats after school and she let me play with her daughter’s barbie dolls. None of the other kids ever got to play with the Barbies.  Mindy made us sit at a plastic playschool picnic bench and color inside the lines.  If we strayed from inside the lines, Mindy made us start a new page. She would tell us to re-do it and then walk away.  Coloring had to be perfect at Mindy’s house.

The story is that Mindy walking away left me an opening to act out an experience I had learned about and unwillingly experienced.  Even if unwilling, I learned to love the feeling it created.

Underneath the Playskool slide was a toddler; probably about two, still in diapers.  I thought, “This could work.”  I made my way over to the toddler, who was underneath the slide and out of vision from all other occupants of the room.  I mounted the from behind.  I dry humped this poor child until I had an orgasm.  What sways be sideways is that when I was done I went back to coloring as if nothing had happened. 

True story…that is my first memory.  I dry-raped a child.  I don’t even remember their name but can only hope to this day that I didn’t create their first memory. How dare I beget an unwanted act at the infantile memory of an innocent?

Are you asking yourself how I could do such a thing?  Where I would have even learned it?  It is a simple story.  My sister had sex with me before I could even speak full sentences.  Is it her fault that this happened?  No.  It is the teenager that thought it would be funny to have her sister and my sister have sex with each other.  From what I have gathered, the older girls watched.

Did they think it was funny?  What would ever possess someone to do such a thing?

Reader, I don’t blame my sister for the start of this scenario as she was only seven; however, I do blame her for letting it go on so long.

Visit me soon if you can even fathom reading more.

-M

           

Detox

I think I smoked three cigarettes during my ten minute drive to the hospital.  And I was just pissed the entire way. How did we end up back here, nine months later, in the same situation?  Why was I only one of two people he contacted?  Could I even hold my anger together?  I was in as much rage as a child in a mosh pit.  FUCKING RAGE!

I gripped the steering wheel tight with my right hand as my left discarded my cigarette directly onto the “no smoking beyond this point” sign.  I wasn’t even half way finished. Don’t these people know that when I am in distress I tend to smoke like a chimney?  What are they thinking!

At the front desk stood an older white woman and a young adolescent hindu/Indian/mexican boy.  His eyes were dark and questioning.

“And how can I help you today, Miss?” she asked.

“I am here to see Mat Booker.” She has me spell it because apparently it was far past her vocabulary.

She wrote my name on the visitor pass.  “It’s room 332 dearie.”

“Sounds great,” I retorted, “but how do I get there?”

“Just down that hallway to the main elevators and up to the third floor.”

The two floor ride seemed like an oceanic flight.  Nine hours of terror.  What will happen?  What will he look like?  Will it be as bad as last summer?  Will he be paper thin and shaking through every sentence?

I exited the elevator to a deafening silence on the floor.  I could feel the death in the air and it exhausted me.

Alone I walked through the left corridor.  My heart pounded in my chest.  301…302…305.  Damnit – wrong side of the hallway – who marked this shit and why are they prolonging the inevitable ahead of me.

329…330…331…here.  I took a deep breath as I entered the room.  I had envisioned him to be the same as last year in his frail state; skinny and frail.  But a repeat of last year was not what I saw.  Not even my worst night terror could have prepared me for what I saw.

He lay there on the bed, shaking, yet barely moving.  His hair mimicked that of someone who had just put their finger in a light socket.  His lips appeared glued shut and his eyes were rolled into the back of his skull.  The thin sheet that covered him failed to disguise the exposed knee, foot, hip, shoulder, and chest bones that have popped out over time.  His face was dark and eyes sunken in…almost bulging out of his prehistoric skull.

With vomit in my throat, I tried to turn around.  But I couldn’t.  Everyone else had already turned their back and I just couldn’t leave him on his own.  He had to know that somebody cared.  If he came back once before…he can come back again.

“Hey Buddy!” I gasped.  “It’s me, Michele.”

He briefly opened his eyes, but as quick as they met my gaze, they rolled back inside his head.  It appeared for a moment as if he was trying to say something to me, then all I heard was confused moans attempting to gasp through dried tight lips.

Something was wrong.  I ran to the nurse’s station.

“Hi!,” I gasped.  “Hello!  I…I think my uncle needs some help. 332.”

The nurse followed me into the room.

“Mat.  Mat!” She gently touched his shoulder to alert that she was there.  “Do you need some help?”

He looked at me.  And then back to her.  I couldn’t understand a word he said, but she knew he needed to go to the bathroom.  He was unable to get up for himself so she brought a bed pan out.

“I’m not sure what you will want to do, hun,” she stated as she glanced at me, “but he has to go number two and I am not sure if you will want to stay.”

“nope, sure don’t.”  I grabbed my purse and headed for the open seating area.

Dial number one…Mom…No answer.

Dial number two…Dawn…No answer…this time I left a message.  Dawn already knew he was in the hospital, mom didn’t.

As I dialed my uncle, Dawn beeped in.

“Hey Michele, grandpa’s here, you are on speaker phone.  Are you at the hospital”

SHIT!

“Hey Dawn,” my voice shook.  “Yeah, I’m here.”

“So, how is he?”

“I’m not sure I want grandpa to hear what I have to say,” I retorted.  “I can’t really filter how I feel.

I can hear her ask him in the background if he wants to hear what I have to say.  Then I heard his “mmmhmmm.”

“He said yes Michele.  Give it to us straight.”

I couldn’t believe she was doing this.  Give it to her straight.  She fucking hates him.  Way to put on a show for grandpa you dumb bitch.

”Okay.  He is worst than last summer.  He looks like a hospitalized freak anorexic who doesn’t eat anything.  He is hallucinating and doesn’t know who I am.  His eyes are rolled backward and he can’t even lift his torso with his arms to move in his bed.  He fucking looks like a God Damn Holocaust victim suffering in the depths of a German winter.  I honestly don’t know how to feel right now.  I know I feel sick but I am pissed he has done this to us again an no one cares.  And the only person that can get info from the doctors, your ‘oh so special sober’ brother, doesn’t even want to talk to him.  He is so sick that even without the C-Diff he had last year, he is still in a diaper and shitting himself.”

I heard my grandpa mumble in the background.

“We will be there later today,” my aunt informed. “Will you tell him we are coming.”

“Yeah.  But like I said, he doesn’t even know who I am right now and I have actually talked to him since his last stint.”

I just had to get that little jab in there.  Enough for my grandpa to hear.  (and that my friends, is becoming a different story.”

I saw the nurse come out of the room and seized the opportunity to talk to her. There is no point in dialogue here because I couldn’t get anything.  He needed to be alert and coherent enough to give the nurses permission to talk to me.

I walked back in the room and said goodbye.  For a second I thought he was puckering his lips to kiss me goodbye, but I was fooling myself.  He is HALLUCINATING! So I just said goodbye without the normal kiss on the cheek and left.

Introduction

Reader -

Welcome to my blog.  At this point in my life, I am ready to tell you the stories that have shaped me into who I am today.  As I write these stories, I will post them for you to read.  I hope to reach you on a level that you have never thought about before.  From my readings; I want you to laugh until you can't breathe, cry until puddles form, and rage until your face is red.  I'll tell you this; you will only get the truth from me and I expect the same in return.

Just remember...whenever you feel that you aren't loved, know that someone out there does indeed love you.

Just a thought

Sometimes…when things don’t work out, you will feel miserable inside for a while.  Then there is a glimmer of hope inside your lying mind.  And that glimmer is fainter than a dying candle in the pitchest of black. Yet you sit there staring and dreaming of what could be; hoping the light will never fade.  But, then it happens… and that candle dies, and you are left alone in the dark wondering what you ever did to deserve such loneliness.

~Michele