Bottom feeders and burdens...

I'm getting better at faking it...day in and day out. I don't cry so much, hardly at all actually. I get up, go to work...pretend that I don't feel any pain, smile and laugh, take extra work on so it helps others...but there are times I stare out the window and the thoughts I spend so much energy in keeping away find their way inside my brain...I just don't know it, until I start feeling angry, bitter and hateful. The thoughts slowly and methodically eat away at the good in me, leaving nothing but crumbs of what I once was. It is only I who suffer, only I who continues to feel the sting of a lover's twisted blade of so called love. So called love. I can go a day or so, sometimes two or three without being consumed with thoughts of her, well my thoughts aren't really of her...I continue to miss Zachary so much the pain often leaves me breathless. The only times I think of Anji are when I've seen her in the community, driven by a place that once was "ours" or someone reminds me that she is with someone else. Then I spend so much time that it turns into days where my only thoughts are of how I want to make her hurt. Feel the pain she has caused me. Make her feel the lies, the betrayal and broken promises. The cheating. I've never met someone so capable of just walking away without a second thought as if I never existed. Like our relationship was meaningless. Nothing. Simply nothing.

And yet I hate myself because I still carry her lies and betrayal with me everywhere I go. It is my constant companion. Never but a heartbeat away. I don't need reminders of what I had, what I thought I had, what I lost and what I have now. A friend of mine gave me this really awesome poem thing and its basic premise is that this burden I carry is indeed mine, but it's not meant for me to carry. So in theory, I'm supposed to give this burden, this heavy, rotting, painful cross over to God to carry despite the fact that yes, it is mine...but just because it is mine, doesn't mean I have to carry it. I suppose this would be where, if in conversation someone would make comment about Jesus dying on the cross or some sort of biblical reference to somehow ease the torture that my heart feels every day, to the spirit inside me that slowly feels itself dying. And in fact, I can hear my friend having this conversation with me.

I spent most of my life feeling like a mistake, like God made a mistake in creating me. A blip in the creation of life. A bottom feeder I used to call myself. Never one to be happy, never one to want to know how it felt to be happy, because bottom feeders should never feel happy or even dream of it. I believed that I was a waste of space...my body and soul could have been better spent on someone else who could have benefited from it. A doctor. A mother. A star...anyone but me. I used to be consumed with those thoughts, not so much anymore. I think I have come to realize that regardless of why God made me, I'm here for the duration of the ride. I just don't understand why the ride has to be so painful and last so long. Is there something I have left to do that until it is done, my soul stays stuck in this virtual reality of hell? Was I that bad in another life...was my soul so corrupt that I have no easy escape?

As a bottom feeder, I never should have hoped to fall in love with Anji...I should NEVER have believed that I would be worthy of her love, that she could ever care for someone like myself. What a fool I was. What a fool I am. I'm living a life that I don't feel is mine. Like there was a mix up...I was supposed to stay away, in the dark, playing a back up role instead out on the field like a pro acting like I know what I'm doing. I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING. I only know what I'm not doing...I'm not being a good Mormon. I'm not healing my clients from their wretched illness'. I'm not making this world a better place...I'm just taking up space. And I hate that.

Mom told me how upset it makes her knowing that my sole reason for living is her. That if she were not living, I would kill myself. She said something about it being a poor reason. My mother is the most wonderful woman I have ever known. I live my life trying to make her happy, to make my existence somehow worthwhile in her eyes. To make her proud to have me as a daughter. She is compassionate, loving, funny, supportive, helpful and courageous. I feel like such a let down compared to her. Heck, I have the 3rd least money making degree you can possibly have. High stress, low morale, high turn over and little pay. A job for a bottom feeder. When all is said and done, no one will ever remember who you are let alone your name...just like you were never there.

This is a much longer post than I had planned and it took itself in a much different direction than I had planned. I am so tired of giving a crap about Anji. And to some extent Zachary, although just saying that kills me inside. I love him so. I want every memory of her gone. It's hard enough trying to love myself being a lesbian Mormon, trying to find my way in this life that seems to reach out and grab at my ankles looking for every opportunity to trip me up and swallow me whole. Dealing with Anji and our soul rotting relationship just adds to the weight I carry everyday and makes it all that more difficult to just stand up let alone move. I'm afraid if I fall to my knees I will never get back up, but I also realize that is the perfect position to pray to God for help...pray that He takes this burden that is mine from me. My problem is that I have trouble once I give it up, not taking it back. How do I not take it back when it holds me down like a ball and chain? I've lost everything I can trying to carry this myself...short of my life. And right now, I don't think the exchange rate is very favorable...I would just end up owing my soul too.