THE RETURN TO NORMALCY

Maybe it was because yesterday I decided to dress in 1950's fashion, with a poodle a-line skirt with teal, gold and orange flowers stemming from the bottom, teal belt to create an empire waist illusion and a teal blouse, pearls, hair rolled up intersecting into a bun. I felt like a desperate housewife from the leave it to beaver sitcom living the American dream of white Pickett fences in suicidal suburbia and Pleasantville and wanting so bad to be in color when i haven't evolved that far yet, haven't advanced and still stuck in black and white....

Color me

Color me

Color me

I want to color.

in the lines.

out of the lines.

To know what life in technicolor feels like...to know what I really look like. Who I really am.

Yes, it must have been this very reason that I decided to reject this return to normalcy andFordism assembly lines and recycled lives...I don't want to recycle my days...I want newness everyday.

Last night was a very difficult one for me, given I had to reevaluate the recycled waste my life has become. After self-loathing and self-annihilation, I woke up with great ideas in mind. No matter how distant goals may seem, how uncertain you are about the things you want, you have to fight for them. Progress is a series of small movements that lead to full, big colored picture. If innovators were too scared or too lazy or too unsure about color...we would still see the world through black and white lenses. I just can't allow myself to exist in such a limited medium. Imagine all the colors that exist today...even just in a crayola crayon box...

The other day I colored with my nephew and our painted worlds had scarlet, and asparagus, and mac and cheese, and shocking pink, and forest green, and just classic pink and blue, but also indigo and exotic shades of the regular mundane tones. I want to be black and white and classic sometimes, but I need the option, the variation to be brick red and salmon...sometimes I just need to be salmon...

Today I started to color my life.

And I can be found somewhere over the rainbow.

ATTN: CONSUME ME

Quick thought: I love to be consumed.

As I prepared for the night ahead, deciding that after watching Public enemies I was in love with 1930's and 1950's fashion especially hairstyle; I adorned myself in finger waves and a black tulip mini skirt, a polka dot 3/4 sleeve puff shoulder blouse tucked in, pearls with a antique brooch, and a cocktail hat with a hot pink flower and black veil, totally modern interpretation of vintage and a shocking pink ruffled peep-toe, t-strap shoe. Red lipstick...oh yes! This is by far the best outfit of all my creations...I wonder how could a woman like this, not be loved? How can a treasure like this not be treasured? My fellow bloggers, if you were so lucky to witness this outfit first handily...you would surely agree that the man who leaves me...must be out of his mind!

When I get dressed I imagine reactions and how the world around me might consume me...I just like the thought of being an object, a consumable commodity, an edible entity...when I get dressed I want to be consumed...

Today I will be consumed I have decided...yes...and sometimes there is nothing wrong with wanting to be desired and then to be that thing that satisfies that craving.

Finally Free!

It takes a really amazing moment in your life to realize that all the previous moments were all a facade. That sometimes we make ourselves believe things that we even know were never true. A few days ago I dismantled that facade and finally saw who the man I have loved for a year now, I never really loved. I waited for an intervention but it never came, a divine intervention, but i am glad no one came to rescue me, because I was able to rescue myself.

A few days ago, after a very long and interesting evening/morning I got home around 5 am and still felt my night wasn't over. By now I felt sober and I lay in bed dialing the number, starring and then deleting it over and over again. I wanted to call but couldn't find the words...So I figured that since love letters are my specialty, that I would text instead to break the ice...

After the longest text of my life...i received an instant reply...uhhh I wasn't actually prepared for him to respond...We text back and forth and had an hour long conversation via phone. It was dejavu, because i found myself sprawled across the kitchen floor and him telling me to hop in a cab and see him, and there was reminiscing about good times and requests to put "that sexy shit on." and I didn't have the will power to refuse when I had wanted it for far too long. This may be my only chance to be free of this captivity...or maybe simply to indulge in the forbidden desires that we crave for. I craved him. The thought of having him in my mouth again made me tingle inside. I thirsted for him, and he was the only thing that would be able to quench it.

I asked him one real question, allowing myself to leave the past in the past because I have forgiven him, I asked "Why wasn't I good enough?" He reassured me that I was, that he still thinks of me, that the things I had done to him no woman will ever and has never done. I had introduced him to a world that he will never forget, one that no one can compare to, one he will crave for forever. Upon that statement I had a great epiphany! This entire time when reminiscing, when missing him, it was only sexual. I can never deny that the sexual chemistry, the physical intimacy in which we participated in and shared, will never compare to any other in the past or in the future. But there was no real relationship there. We were lovers...great lovers...star-crossed lovers...but outside of the bed we were strangers. I had committed the ever so common mistake---confuse lust for love! It wasn't until realizing this was I able to agree to seeing him. You only live once right?

I agreed to see HIM. Finally....HIM.

I snuck out of my house like I used to many months ago to see HIM. I looked at my father in a deep slumber and fought back tears knowing how much it would sadden him to see me doing this again. He hated seeing me this way...bleeding in love...driven by the desire for him, by the obsession with him. So many times he would walk into the house or wake up from his sleep to find me on the kitchen floor or the floor of our rooms drinking away my sorrows, waiting by the phone in angst, in hope, in desperation....often wallowing in drunken tears. He has seen me time and time again rummaging through the drawers and darkness finding lingerie and outfits and dolling myself all up, to then fall asleep waiting for a call that didn't come until 4 and 5 am...this is when the call would come and this is when i awakened and hopped into a cab and made my way to him even with eyes still wide shut. I was so blind. This my father knew all too well and as I shut the door with my clothes and accessories and the disappointment...I felt the weight of his uncried tears, of his unconscious sadness...of seeing, of knowing, of feeling his daughter fall into the pit of love relapse and binging on HIM.

I called a cab like old times and when it neared, I slowly closed the door behind me and put on my boots while sitting on the cold linoleum stairs of my building. For a moment I had this sense of impeding doom reaching and I was just so scared. I was scared that maybe I would see him and fall deeply into love with him again. What would I do if it was instant love and what would I allow myself to become amidst such love addiction?

As I neared to his building I thought this is it Ivelisse, you have just committed suicide! This decision, you will surely live to regret..

The building was immaculate melancholy that made me want to cry. Magnificent and tragic. I missed being there, feeling like I belonged there and belonged to him. I like the thought of being owned.

"Buzz me up"

I walked up the stairs ever so slowly, my heart racing, my legs heavy and feeling imobile. Would I ever reach the top? The endless stairway to my heaven, to my hell, to my paradise, to my Garden of Eden, and yet to the inferno that engulfs me in the imprisoning flames of passion. Yes...this was everything i ever wanted, and everything I have ever feared.

Panting now, I reached the top and waited. As he opened the pearly iron gates, there was complete certainty in my attraction to him. I fed off of him and I just wanted to drop to my knees, he's like a little prayer and I can feel his power...yes Madonna, I wanted to pray to him...I saw the face of god and his name is _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.

Nervous short conversation and then contemplating this was a bad decision and should just RUN, run far away from HIM. But then I remembered my epiphany and I looked at him and realized he was a stranger...He is different. I am different. I want his body, to indulge in his delicious flesh...but past that we can remain strangers. Sex...yes...with no strings attached.

I kissed him...and the world spun into a frenzy...and I entered in the world of lust...Doing things to him that i have dreamt for months and the things that I may never be able to experience with anyone...I satisfied my craving that day and my CEO even contacted me while captivated in HIM...and I text back...because CEO while brief, nanoseconds...it was real. I knew him better in that month, more about him, than I had known about HIM in a year. And by texting CEO back...I let go of HIM.

I left with the most nonchalant demenor, something he has always hated about me. Before I walked out I said, thanks for giving me one last time. He suggested that this may not have to be the last time, but i insisted that I had achieved transcendence and was grateful for CLOSURE. I didn't NEED him anymore. but I know that i may WANT him from time to time....

One last question I asked: "Why didn't you choose me? Why her and not me?" and like typical G-skills, he reversed it making it seem like fate and me being away and excuse upon excuse.

"Spare me I said, keep it straight funky."

"How can you be so nonchalant about this?" he asked.

I said "because I have forgiven you. I'm over it, love. You can never hurt me the way you did, you don't have the power to hurt me anymore."

He replied "I just don't know, it just happened."

I cut the convo short knowing nothing he said would matter, would never matter...because that night i objectified him. That night I castrated him. That night I dismembered him. That night i dehumanized him. He is just a phallus. and my heart is now free!

LOST IN DESPERATION---in DESPERATE need of an intervention

Yesterday I had a second relapse, and these relapses are getting progressively worse. I begged for someone to stop me before this spiraled out of control, but no one intervened. Now I'm calling to you for assistance, I'm desperate for an intervention before I complete this last cry out to him. I think now that my CEO has erased my blog and will not be reading, I am free again to write as I will. Again, i am in my judgement free zone, thank god!

A few days ago amidst a drunken stupor and high in the clouds, I called him, the him from long ago, the one this blog began with. I called private, so stalkerish, I know. It was 4am and he didn't respond. I blamed it on the alcohol and knew that when the sun rose I would be rational again. And as I predicted, after sweet dreams, I awoke and no longer felt inclined to call him. A few days later however I put on my Thelma and Louise scarf and declared it a stalking-day. My sidekick was totally down for the mission, and come yesterday we called his phone acting like a wrong number. Pathetic right? and sober? Yes. I have given up drinking actually, it's really unhealthy, especially when you are over-indulging and for all the wrong reasons. I've been drinking a lot lately, mostly to escape my reality, this is how addictions form. I am well aware of this, but that is the next topic of conversation.

So we called and he was so aggressive and bitter, I allowed my imagination to run for a while wondering what had left him so upset with a "wrong number" caller. Hearing his voice, finally, made me want to fall in love with him all over again, until it hurts. You ever wanted to love someone until it hurts? Loving him was very painful. Sometimes I forget that. His voice was angry, the way I last heard it months ago during our last fight. It has been two months since I heard his voice. My best friend hung up and my heart sank, my legs gave out and I thought this must be what it's like to have a heart attack. The rest of the night I kept thinking he'd call back because he knew. I waited for him to say "Hey I know it's you" over the phone, especially because his voice had an accusatory tone...I guess when you're guilty it always seems like everyone knows. You think he knows? In my heart I think he does. After that call I thought that maybe I just had to see him, speak to him, that I would find him...but hearing his voice scared the shit out of me. How could you ever speak to someone who killed you? Like come on...what would I say? "Hey I know you're an ass hole and treated me like shit, but I wanted to say hi, see how you're are doing, tell you I still think about the good times and have forgotten the bad times because I have forgiven you. Hope your relationship is going well and she is everything I couldn't be for you, to you, everything you wouldn't let me be." ummmmm this is all the truth, but since when do we tell the truth anymore? Sometimes lies are more effective, sometimes I lie because if I lie to him, I can lie to myself...because the truth hurts. So maybe that call is my closure, maybe I can leave that behind, sure that I haven't ran into him because God truly works in mysterious ways...Leave it in his hands.

Now for the big picture....

I have been over indulging in every sinful pleasure there is, trust me when I say this. I was so upset over losing CEO and another failing love affair that I decided the hell with this new Eve, she is so lame...and she's always getting hurt. Ida Cox sings "Wild women don't have the blues," and you're damn right wild women don't have the blues for no man. She is free, her heart is free. I didn't always have the blues like I have them today...not as bad, nope, but I was a lot more wild back then too. So I attempted to return to wild me, over-indulging in the trio: food, alcohol and sex. "No bueno" like my CEO would say. Yes, indeed, no bueno. It seems that I had also forgotten that wild women do get the blues, the consequence blues. She has freedom, but this woman has to deal with the repercussions of her over-indulgences and they can be really intense reparations. Upon being reminded of the type of consequences wild women deal with I called it quits. I had to stop drinking and fucking and eating and getting high in this Ménage à trois and take charge of my life. It just seems like my life is stuck in a rut, in an empty humdrum existence, with series of mundane gestures that carry me through the days. Doesn't it seem like days are just rolling in and out without purpose? without direction? i feel like I just am, breathing, existing but not alive. I was so distracted by the events that make life a little spicier, that i lost focus of the big picture. Didn't this blog begin as a way of self-healing and self-discovery? Then how is that I am still punishing myself? Still participating in self-destruction and self-loathing? It's time to regroup, reevaluate. I want more...and I don't even mean that in the materialistic sense, I need to satisfy my hungry soul. I want to wake up each day with purpose, with inspiration, with motivation. So today I woke up and decided to make my way to the gym to cleanse my body and then to the park to cleanse my soul. I need to plan for the future because what these past few months post graduation have taught me is that time is not patient, it goes on and nothing you can do will stop it.

Time.

Time.

Time.

Time.

Like a Salvador Dali painting, melting away my life.

NOSTALGIA

OK, Ok, Ok...I miss him. Yes.

Yesterday I went back to old familiar ways and I had a blast like whoa mad fun! Sort of forgot how much being myself was before I tried to be too serious. I'm focusing on me and that includes job search, graduate school search and most definitely fun search. I was so distracted and entertained that I almost forgot to think of him, which is pretty sweet considering how heartbroken I usually get. That doesn't mean I didn't cry though, don't get it twisted. Yesterday when the sun set it hit me after being in utter shock. Yoskar Srante sings La Noche:

"Tu amor de noche me llegó

Un claro dia se me fue.
Maldigo al sol que se llevó
Tus juramentos y mi fe.

Tu amor el dia me hace odiar.
La noche apaga mi rencor.
Porque ella viene a recordar.
Que no soy nada sin tu amor.

La noche
Me hace volver,
enloquecer."

When the night fell I just sobbed, and I don't mean those forced once stimulated by nostalgia. No. It wasn't even the kind that you gasp for air. No. Not ridiculous or melodramatic. No. It was the saddest, quietest cry. It was mellow. I sat on my bed and let the tears stream down. It made me realize how much I had actually liked him and how much I'd actually missed him. This month that I had been with him made me realize that I had been confused, crocodile tears and yearning for my ex, when in fact I didn't want him. Now that I have nothing to stop me from going back to Ryer, from seeing my ex, I just don't want to. I finally don't want my ex anymore. I don't want anyone actually. I like my solitude...well sort of.

After night completely fell and I cried in its darkness, my eyes swollen, my nose running, I sighed a sigh of relief and got dolled up and walked out the door. My cousin said I'm too good hearted and I have too much faith in people...my mom told me the same thing yesterday. Apparently I'm naive. What? I didn't even think I was but my good hearted nature, supposedly makes me blind to the true nature of people. Damn...

I walked out the door about 9:00pm and didn't get home until about 7:00am....talk about fun! and to top it all off I was sober! yay!!!!

Today I woke up around 3 pm and walked out the door not much later and just got in around 12am. Thinking about making some moves but not sure yet, and now that I have given myself some down time I can't help but think about tomorrow...

Tomorrow is my nieces birthday and when we gather my brother will ask me how the boo is doing like he always does since I met him and I'll have to say there is no boo. Pito was rooting for the boo...I was rooting for him too. It will sadden me to tell him that once again I chose wrongly.

When I told my best friend about everything that ensued I also had to face the fact that I had made a big mistake. He wasn't the person my friend was talking about...ooopppssss...so maybe he didn't lie. Maybe it was real...It felt so real. It had to be real, what we shared and all. But because of my accusations I also learned about the rawness of his reality that because of mother nature and dumb mistakes I will no longer be able to be with him. I'm upset. and I'm jealous. I should have been her...I deserved to be her.

In the haze of nostalgia I looked to facebook but he wasn't there. And while in intense investigation I remembered our first facebook conversation I saved and I read it. Damn...how was that not real? How wasn't that suppose to last? I'm so confused. I was so sure....If I would have known that right now we weren't going to be together I know that I would have sucked him dry...seen him more, moved faster, gotten all the CEO I could handle...but I took it slow thinking this was everlasting.

I'll save that convo so whenever I am in the mood to take a trip down memory lane...

Ughhhhh....

That is the only way to describe this situation...ughhhh....

BLINK BLUE.

BLINK BLUE.

BLINK BLUE.

BLINK BLUE

BLINK BLUE.

BLINK BLUE.

PLEASE

BLINK BLUE.

Recycled Revenge: a return to symbiosis

Truth is no, I'm not heartbroken. I'm just utterly disappointed in the male species. Since I was young my mother taught me that men were dogs and that all you could do was use them, treat them like shit and dispose of them. Keep them on a short leash she said and when he's good you give him your goodies and when he's bad you punish him. Except for the vengeful part, I don't got the rest down. Since I was very young, I didn't listen to my mother. I was like, yo ma this extreme feminism can only leave someone bitter and lonely for the rest of their lives. I wasn't feeling the role of old bag lady with a million cats. Creepy. I have always been a hopeless romantic, a sucker for love. I thought that maybe love would sweep me away one day, but every time it does it brings me right back to my mother's reality where girls like me get hurt by boys like him and girls like me get lied to by boys like him and girls like me are always left alone by dogs like him...ooopppsss typo...boys like him.

"You aint nothin but a hound dog, been snoopin round my door...You can wag your tail but i ain't gonna feed you no more!" Big Mama Thornton got it on point...

I thought that after being betrayed twice and left out to dry twice and disposed of twice, I'd have a mighty inferiority complex. Turns out I feel better than ever! For the first time I can say fuck it. I hurted for way to long over the unmentionable and now that CEO is in the same category this can only mean that I am not ready for relationships. I've decided to return to old habits and find really good new ones too. I am going to be a happy single and when a hound dog comes snoopin round my door...I won't feed em no more! I'm going to take this opportunity to live, have fun and definitely find a few toys. That's all men should be toys, thanks ma, I think I'm finally coming to terms with that raw reality.

A return to symbiosis:

When I first met CEO he was my symbiosis, you remember that? He served his purpose in my life, it is finally fulfilled. Today he finished. CEO made me stop crying over the ex and CEO made me stop crying over men in general. Thanks CEO I've lost my heart and I'm so over this love shit. "Love doesn't exist" used to be my motto when I was like 16 and I think I'll return to this dogma.

LOVE DOESN'T EXIST.

LOVE DOESN'T EXIST.

LOVE DOESN'T EXIST.

LOVE DOESN'T EXIST.

Symbiosis: Not only did CEO serve his purpose but an old friend from high school made her way back into my life yesterday and by coincidence told me the truth of our fellow boss, Mr. CEO. Turns out CEOs do play dirty and make profit at the expense of everyone's heart. Thanks old friend, because if it weren't for you he would still be CEO, he just got demoted.

LIES. LIES. LIES.LIES.LIES

He claims he didn't lie....he just withheld the truth? HA!

These are not the most profound thoughts I've had since they are really raw at the moment. But this needed to be expressed.

You know what kills me? That I didn't even want to be with CEO in the beginning. He wasn't really my type and I sort of forced myself to like him on that physical level and now look at it. I should have just deaded him when I had the chance. Great.

But even if it weren't him, it would have been some other body taking his place and he would have done the same thing. Men are all the same.

Anyway this is not an ode to men, but an ode to ME:

I vouch never to believe again.

I vouch never to have faith in love again.

I vouch never to consume myself with men.

I vouch never to give out my heart.

I vouch never to wear my heart on my sleeve.

I vouch to become heartless.

I vouch to let the hopeless romantic die.

I vouch to be alone but not lonely.

I vouch to focus on me.

I vouch to recycle revenge.

RELAPSE

I guess when you have multiple addictions as I do...you're bound to have a relapse of at least one of these...in my case I have had relapses in practically all. I think I'm just weak. It's really not that I haven't tried to be stronger, more assertive, it's mostly that its habit to return to old ways and with my best friend having moments of weakness when I, in the decade I've know her, have never seen her weak, I fell too. Of course I'm not justifying this situation with her failings. I know this is my own fault.

A few days ago I had a relapse.

I went to Ryer.

I went back home.

I know it is only human to battle with inner demons and that sometimes you just lose. I lost. I can't blame it on alcohol. I can only blame it on love, on yearning, on comfort, on longing for something to make sense in my life. When I turned the corner into the block there was complete certainty. There are no always, no nevers, just sometimes, sort ofs and maybes--if I'm lucky. But Ryer, 2088, is certainty...and always home. I stood in front of the building and it was like the ruins of ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt; like pillars of hope, River-valley civilization of Mesopotamia where it all began and we still look to for inspiration and clarity. The burnt orange brick building like an archaic sunset, before pollution and industrialization made us forget the beauties of nature. It seemed far more immaculate that I had remembered it months ago. Why did it look so beautiful? I told the friend I was with I just wanted to go inside and I asked him, can I go inside? But it was 2am and it was just us two in the middle of urban wilderness, urban exotics, urban bliss. He forced me to keep walking, but my feet felt rooted into the asphalt. I am rooted there, and even when they cut me off; when I step foot on the streets that nurture me, I re-branch, re-root. I wanted to sit on the stoops all night like the old days, I even missed my cousins briefly. Momentarily I wondered what happened in between these few years that severed the branches that bound us together and why we couldn't re-root stronger than before? But if I would have stepped foot on the steps, I would have been a trespasser. I am not a trespasser. God, forgive us our trespasses and deliver us from evil amen...yes, deliver me from the confinements of purgatory. I am stuck in purgatory, the transitional space between my heaven and my hell, neither home nor gone. I'm still here, but I'm not home. So I ask to be helped, guided to a new place, a new home, if ever there is such a place than can exist as "home."

Truth, I cried all the way home. But that's usually what happens when i see 2088 and have been away for far too long. You can only get that overwhelming feeling when you have been away from home just for far too long. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, right?

The following day I passed by again...yeah...and this is producing a trend that needs to be halted before it runs rampant producing consequences that all that know me would urge me to stray away from. I don't want to lose myself in the black hole of nostalgia. But can you when the place you once knew is so different now? Memories can not be recreated, reenacted. They are static images that follow with you everywhere but ones you can never go back and relive. Things have changed, people come and go, it's never the same. It's just never the same.