me
Cole (12/25/14):
Hola a todos!
I hope that everyone is doing well. I know it has been quite a while since my last post, and for that I apologize. I really should be better about keeping on top of things. The thing is, it isn’t always easy when so many things constantly change, fluctuate, and shanghai you out of nowhere. As I write this, I would have to say that I am in a pretty good place, but these past couple of months have been pretty much all over the charts for me, and just incredibly odd and baffling, to say the least! I will get to that later, but for now, let me tell you the good news that has me so pumped up and excited about the direction my life is currently taking. Sometimes I forget what it feels like to not have to stress about my current job situation, after about two years of nothing but ambiguity and wandering sans concrete direction.
I don’t even need to go back and look at my last post to remember exactly where I was, mentally and physically. I had just finished my very first harvest, and though I had loved the work tremendously, I had become disenchanted with the hostility that began to wax as harvest was coming to an end. I felt alienated and under-appreciated, and though I was feeling somewhat distraught, disappointed, and down, I was still dearly hoping to stay in the wine industry, only with a new company, one with a group of people that were forward-thinking, avant-garde, edgy, hopefully even somewhat revolutionary, in a sense. I mean, I suppose most companies would have to be, to be able to accept and appreciate me, and make the person that I am at the core, truly work to their advantage. I am hard working, respectful, and eager to learn and adjust, but I am hardly the most “marketable” person (depending on the circumstances), due to my physical appearance (red and purple hair, visible tattoos, Monroe facial piercing, etc.). So when an “up and coming” new tasting room was about to open its doors, and they eagerly appreciated my “style” as well as my resume, I was on cloud nine when the job was offered to me, just a day after interviewing for the position of Wine Steward. Excitement can’t even begin to describe what I was feeling when I came home to that email, offering me the job, after what was the most long, drawn out, and painfully awkward job interview for another tasting room, at another winery just an hour or so previous. I have been working for this awesome new company for close to two months now, and I’m smitten!
The interview I had for the place I am currently working for was great. Probably the best job interview I have ever had. Immediately upon sitting down, they told me they saw my résumé and just HAD to meet me, because I was a “bad ass”. That was what they said to me. They told me I was a bad ass. I was tickled by this! All this time I thought my random ass résumé was somehow hindering me. Now I know it was because up until that point, I just hadn’t found the right company. I mean, it really is all over the charts, but they were right. It is fucking bad ass! I just needed to find people “enlightened” enough to appreciate it. Or else believe it...
No degree, but two language certificates. Equal amounts of time in both hospitality and an industrial environment. My résumé is just as contradictory as I am a person. I can talk about food, wine, languages, and literature just as well as I can talk about football, hazardous waste, nuclear power generation, laying tile, and firing off a few rounds at Turkey Flats while sipping PBR and spewing double negatives like I was a born redneck. But this was what appealed to them about me. They said that I could talk to anyone, and they were right. I can pretty much talk to any damn person who walks into that tasting room about any damn thing, and everyone who walks out after tasting with me has a smile on their face. I’ve had several customers ask to have their picture taken with me, give me 22 ounce bottles of home brew IPA, and I’ve been handed more telephone numbers than I can count. The fact that I’m so randomly acquainted with so many varied aspects of life only works to my advantage, and my awkward nerdiness puts people at ease. I’ve seen people walk in super stiff and prepared to “hate”, but by the time they walk out they are relaxed, and have most likely bought a few bottles as well. I think my awkward, nerdy, light-heartedness is disarming, because I just want to have a good time, and I think my passion and lack of ego thaws frigid souls. At the end of the day, I just want people to have a nice time, and I think my lack of pretentiousness is appreciated.
So, luckily for me, the lovely ladies interviewing me were not turned off by my somewhat odd résumé, as so many potential employers seemed to be, but were intrigued. They saw something in me, and that was quite a refreshing feeling, after somewhere around two years of feeling like a complete outcast.
It felt like my dreams were coming true, especially after having written my last post, where I stated that I wanted to work in the wine industry, for a group of people that would love and appreciate me for who I am. Then all of the sudden, I stumble upon such a winery, totally randomly, on Craigslist, and almost blew the interview off entirely because I felt there was just no way in hell the company would even consider me, let alone be thrilled to welcome me as a member of their team. The ladies who hired me fired off that they wanted to be “edgy, anti wine snob, cool, etc”, and all I could think was; holy shit. This is the avant-guarde place I wrote about in my last post, but did not think possibly existed. I wanted to work there more than anything, but the interview was not over yet…
Before I left, the main boss brought up the issue of F-bombs. I thought it was funny, the way she brought it up, and I was just as straight with her as she was with me. She said something along the lines of: I know construction, and construction people, and I know there were probably quite a few F-bombs thrown out. Can you refrain from spouting off F-bombs in the tasting room?
I told her that I couldn’t lie. I told her that I was quite fond of the F-bomb, and that certainly it had become a word that I said a lot, but that there was also a time and a place for everything, and a tasting room was no place for the F-bomb.
She laughed, and said that certainly, in the privacy of her office, the F-bombs would fly. I told her that it was sort of like Christmas morning at my parents house. No matter how many Bloody Mary’s my brothers and I consumed, you know when to go into “church mode” and speak the way that is proper to the current environment or situation. I told her that I wouldn’t utter an F-bomb at an opera any more than I would in a tasting room. We both got a good laugh out of my honesty, and I felt that we understood each other. I walked away from the interview feeling great, feeling that I had been sincere and had concealed nothing, but not knowing how they would take my honesty and sincerity.
The following morning I had coffee with my father. I told him how excited I was and how great I had felt after the interview, and if I should express my gratitude, either by calling or sending an email, because I was really just so ecstatic about how the interview had gone, and whether or not I got the job, I wanted the ladies who had interviewed me to know how grateful I truly was to have met with them and spoken with them on a totally sincere and respectful level. He said I should write them a little thank-you note, on nice stationary, thanking them for their time. That was just what I had planned on doing, as soon as I got back from coffee, but another tasting room called me in for an interview.
I put my plans on hold, and drove to Paso for yet another interview…
To say this other interview was painful would be an understatement. Not only did I have to smell, sip, taste, spit out, and even re-visit close to twenty wines, into a spit bucket that the current tasting room employee didn’t feel the need to empty, so that toward the end, when I would spit out a decent sized mouthful of Tempranillo, a couple of splashes would “re-visit” my fucking face, it was like pulling teeth just to get the woman who was interviewing me to engage in conversation. And maybe that was her tactic, her way of interviewing potential tasting room attendants, but it was just really awkward, and she held me hostage for a fucking hour and a half! The wines were decent, but I hadn’t planned on being held captive, to keep guests in her tasting room entertained while she would clutch at my sleeve at every opportunity and not let me go, after our interview was over and I tried to make my polite escape several times, and I just wanted to go home, now more than ever, to write a thank you note to the ladies I had interviewed with the day before, who were bad ass, awesome, and super easy to talk with, on a level beyond the superficial interview level, but on a level that seemed real and comfortable.
I walked out of that interview feeling defeated and even somewhat used and molested. I couldn’t wait to get back home, into the safety and warmth of my bedroom, with my dog on my lap, and more than ever, write that thank-you note to the ladies I not only appreciated, but also already somewhat adored for just being real, and awesome, and appreciative of who I am as a person. But I did not need to go any further than checking my email to love those ladies, my current bosses, any more than I already did, because the job was mine, and I felt like I could exhale for the first time in forever, and not just exhale, but fucking scream at the top of my lungs how fucking grateful I was to have a job, working for awesome people, for a company who makes awesome wines, who accepts me for who I am, and where I walk into every day not asking what the company can do for me, but what I can do for them, so as to stay, promote, appreciate, and love the company more than I already do. I want to grow with this company, and I want this company to succeed. They have given me a chance, hiring me despite my somewhat controversial appearance and personality, and I am so appreciative that I want to do everything I possibly can to help this company to succeed. I even finally broke down and got an instagram, so I can post work pictures and help promote the tasting room. I’m still just getting the hang of it, but it’s fun enough.
The cool thing about companies who give a shit about you, is that they are comprised of people who give a shit about you. When people give a shit about you, you feel it, just the same as you feel it when people don’t give a shit about you. It feels good to work for a company that you know cares about you as a person. The communication is positive, constant, and reassuring, just the way it is in personal relationships you have with the people you choose to include in your life or exclude from you life. Work has and always will be my Achilles heel, but I have another, and that is personal relationships, both intimate and friendly. Having someone shady in my life rubs me the wrong way, whether it be business or personal, and shady people are most definitely my second Achilles heel. We do have two heels, after all…
This is a difficult subject for me to grasp, let alone write about. For me, business is business, and work is work. No one should ever fuck with someone’s work, someone’s livelihood, someone’s reason to wake up in the morning. More often than not, my reason to wake up in the morning is my work, but I am human, after all, and sometimes my heart, my soul, my reason for waking up in the morning and hopefully not getting out of bed with incapacitating anxiety stems from personal relationships that have nothing to do with work. Sometimes I am cognizant of my second, lesser prominent and lesser-recognized Achilles heel. Sometimes my weaknesses stem from something other than work. Sometimes my weaknesses, my anxiety, my reason for feeling alien, subhuman, and awkward, have to do with, gasp!, my personal relationships outside of work. Feelings and emotions I wish I did not have or did not feel, but, nonetheless, I do feel, all too clearly.
As much as I wish I could just run from private, personal relationships, the older I get, I do not find myself getting wiser at all, or any more capable of simply running away. In fact, I think I was destined to always be somewhat naïve and gullible, because despite how cynical I may come across, I really do just want to believe the things that people say. I want to believe in the goodness of people. I am notorious for giving people more chances than they deserve, and I usually end up getting burned somehow, threatened, stalked, hurt or abused, and that is what I deserve, I suppose, for being so quick to forgive. But the thing is, I want to believe that there does exist a rare breed of human that actually means what they say and does what they say they will. I want to believe that my level of sincerity, although at times quite crass, harsh, and politically incorrect, is taken at face value and returned at face value, because although I can say some pretty harsh things at times, and I do indeed, to some extent, lack a verbal filter, when I open my mouth and speak to someone, I speak the truth, and I don’t see anything wrong with hoping that the same level of respect can be afforded to me, no matter how brutal.
Does it hurt to speak such harsh truths sometimes? Absofuckinglutely! But is it sometimes better to rip the truth off like a band-aid so it can just be out there and the healing can begin? Of course. Do I sometimes come across as a sad, ridiculous, idiot, asshole, offensive motherfucking cunt when I say the things that most people would not like to hear, but I think they need to hear anyway? Um… Yeah! Like, a lot more often than you might think. Do I feel like a dick sometimes? Yes. Sometimes no, but mostly yes. But I think some things, some times, simply need to be said, and if no one else has the balls to say it, well then I will. For fuck sake, someone’s got to!
At the same time, sometimes when we speak the truth, we put ourselves in an incredibly vulnerable place. Sometimes when we open ourselves up and are honest with other people, we run the risk of being humiliated, taken advantage of, being made fun of, taken for granted, mocked, mistreated, and abused. For a really long time I refused to open up, to be entirely honest with people, and to set myself up for humiliation and disappointment, because I had too much pride. Now that I’m a little bit older, I’ve learned to put my ego aside, and just say what I am feeling, because no matter how disastrous the outcome, I would rather say what I am feeling and receive a definitive answer, no matter how hurtful, than to spend the rest of my life kicking myself for not having had the courage to just say what I wanted to say. At least that way, at the end of the day, I can know that I did all that I could do to make my feelings heard, and even if the outcome was not exactly what I had wished for, I wouldn’t loose any sleep wondering what might have happened, had I just had the strength to put my ego on the shelf and say what I needed to say, what was burning in my heart. When we are completely, brutally, and sometimes sheepishly honest, we may not always get the answer we want, but it’s better than lying in bed all night, tossing and turning, asking ourselves “what if”?
What if I said what I wanted to say? What if I had confessed my love? What if I told my co-worker to fuck off? What if I told my boss about my epic idea? You get the picture…
As per my last post, any follower of this blog will know that the Rapist and I had been communicating via email, and that though I had missed him, the list of things I didn’t miss about him far outweighed the things I did, so I stopped responding to his emails. He stayed away for a little while, but then he contacted me again. He sounded sad and distraught, and so against my better judgment, I began responding.
He said things that lead me to believe that maybe he had changed. He said things that made me feel sorry for him and the way I had ended things, and my heart-strings were touched, and then pulled ever so delicately back, only to be released again, to spring forward and reverberate, and I started to wonder “what if?”…
Two little words that echoed and hummed in my head as the strings never ceased their constant vibrating and humming.
He said all sorts of things. My cutting him off had left him “traumatized”, that he had started smoking because of the anxiety I had caused him, that he was wrong, deserved what he had got, missed me, missed the funny things I would say, the “sarcastic look” I would sometimes get on my face, etc, ad nauseam. He said that he had a lot that he wanted to say to me, that he didn’t want to play games, so once I felt that maybe he truly was sorry for the way he had treated me, my heart began to soften, like the inside of a delicious burrata cheese, and began to seep, and then ooze. I told him that I still had feelings for him, and once I did, he clammed up, only to write me a few pinner lines, once or twice a week, to still keep me interested, or, in my opinion, on the back burner, just in case. A sort of what if of his own, I imagine, but an insincere one…
I only have myself to blame. I knew better than to continue corresponding with him. I knew I had made the right decision in July to cut him off, and I should never have apologized for cutting him out of my life the way I did in the first place, but that is the person that I am. I also knew that I was right in my own way, for apologizing for ending things the way I did, but only because it was something I felt guilty about, and in a way, I suppose, wanted to absolve myself of. Though I knew contacting him and telling him I was sorry was a mistake, it was a risk I was willing to take, because I wanted to do what I thought was right, no matter how emotionally daunting and reckless. When he started crying wolf that he felt remorse, that he was wrong, that he had been traumatized, I allowed his sheepish words disguised in wolf’s clothing to effect me, when I should not have. All of this went down right before the Exhibitionist was about to visit from the bay area, a visit I had been greatly anticipating, but I was stuck in the thick fog of emotional roulette with the Rapist when the Exhibitionist arrived in town and I couldn’t see a foot in front of me, and so, just like so many other times, my window of opportunity for meeting up with someone compatible with me closed, my desire to put the final nail in the Rapist’s coffin fled, and I blew the Exhibitionist off, yet again.
The Exhibitionist came into town and then left, and we did not see each other, as we had so eagerly planned to do. All of this seemed incredibly stupid to me at the time, but now, in retrospect, it no longer does. It goes back to what I mentioned earlier. Sometimes, some things just need to be said, and at least once the truth becomes known, you can’t feel bad about it, or at the very least, you can’t regret that you were true to yourself, and honest with others, no matter what the outcome.
I was honest with the Rapist, and he shut down and stopped communicating. I’m glad that he did. He and I are not on the same page. I can understand that, I can respect it, and as always, I won’t hate on him for it. I don’t rely on other people for my own happiness anyway. I make my own happiness, and happiness is a choice, and it is a choice that I have consciously decided to make, and it is easier than I thought it would be to get back to the person I was two years ago, and certainly work is a huge contributing factor, but it’s mostly just myself, and the way I have decided to start viewing the things in my life. I have chosen to look at the positives and either fix or ignore the negatives. It’s quite liberating, and not only do I feel different, everything looks different to me as well. It’s like I had been wearing sunglasses for the past two years, but I stopped and decided to take them off, and now suddenly I can see, and everything looks different, and brighter, and more beautiful, but I digress…
On another note, I was also honest with the Exhibitionist, as I always have been, and he was not rude, cruel, or hurtful in any way, when I told him, just as I had every other time, why I had shut down and refused to see him. He was kind. He listened. He did not make me feel bad or stupid, and said that he understood completely, which only made my heart bleed even more, because I had blown him off for someone completely unworthy of my time, emotions, and love.
True, when the Exhibitionist and I would text and email before, when I was not feeling bad, had long left the Rapist, and was eagerly looking forward to the Exhibitionist’s visit, he and I would talk about how things might go once we saw each other again, in the flesh, after close to ten years (please review previous posts, if unfamiliar with my relationship with the Exhibitionist). But our “relationship” and communication was not purely sexual in exchange or tone. We have known each other for over a decade, under odd and somewhat complicated circumstances, so at any given time we have been known to discuss any number of subjects. He has always just been a very kind, patient, understanding, and also conveniently gorgeous man, who has never once been rude or cruel to me ever since we started communicating again, a little over a year ago, since he learned of my divorce with my ex-husband. He respected me when I asked him to leave me alone when the Rapist and I were still together, and he has respected me having had some setbacks and emotional obstacles to overcome since the Rapist and I have split, and I did not feel capable of seeing him on account of my feelings still being deeply invested in the Rapist, no matter how much I wished otherwise, and was ashamed for still having such strong emotions for someone who really did not deserve my affections.
The Exhibitionist may not have understood it (or maybe he did), but he respected it, and to me, that made him a prince in my eyes, while I was still obsessing over a selfish, conceited, old toad.
So, for all those cynics out there, you may think that the Exhibitionist was just being kind to me so he could get into my pants, right? I won’t deny that a part of me was thinking the same thing, and who could blame him, right? Especially after all the ups and downs I have put him through. But wait to make your judgment until the end of this post. You might be just as surprised as I was…
I knew that he was coming to town for his birthday, and though I did not know what day his actual birthday was on, once the middle of December came around, I started thinking about him again, wondering if he was in town, wondering if I would hear from him. I thought about texting him, but thought maybe he would not like to hear from me, because I do tend to be quite callous, snarky, and vicious, when I feel simultaneously like my head is in a noose and my heart is awaiting the fall and fatal slice of the guillotine (that is what being in love with the Rapist feels like). But he has never been deterred by my pompous nature, and I think he is actually better than most at seeing past my smoke and mirrors, and seeing me for who I actually am. On December 14th, I received a text from him, as I was walking my dog. All it said was “Man, SLO is cold”
As soon as I saw his text, I smiled. It wasn’t sexual, it wasn’t forceful, it didn’t really mean anything other than what it said, and that he was letting me know he was in town. He knew that I have had a couple of rough years, in addition to a few emotionally fucked, draining, and confusing months. His initial texts are always very friendly, soft, and inviting. Sort of “take it or leave it, but this is where I’m at”. I texted him back “happy birthday”, he texted back that it wasn’t his birthday until the next day. I texted back that I would then text him the same thing, the next day. Our casual banter ended up with us deciding to meet for lunch the next day, in SLO, at a new restaurant, and a sister company to the company I am currently working for. Our “date” was set up for noon the following day. It wasn’t exactly a “date”, but my stomach was not at peace with the idea. No matter how casual it was supposed to be, it still didn’t change the fact that I was going to have lunch with someone who I had been attracted to for over a decade, someone who was intelligent, ambitious, interesting, tatted, quick-witted, gorgeous, and who now knew food better than I did. A worthy adversary, to say the least!
Before our lunch, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I had given myself permission to sleep with him, but I wasn’t going to deny myself the act either, depending on how lunch went, and how I felt at the time. I wasn’t apposed to the idea, but I wasn’t going to do it just because I could, either! I am an incredibly passionate person, and if for some reason the stars lined up and everything clicked, of course I would have slept with him. By that same rationale, I wasn’t going to force something that wasn’t there just because it was in front of me and up for grabs. My brain no longer functions in that fashion. Maybe it will again some day and maybe it won’t, but for now, I need to be moved to passion in order to participate in the act. In that sense I suppose I can be likened to my 12 gauge. I’m always loaded, but if the safety is on I will not engage.
I don’t care if anyone chooses to judge me on that decision. He is a man I have known for over a decade. He is a man I have desired and wanted to sleep with for over a decade, but for whatever reason, due to many circumstances over the years, it just didn’t work out. (again, if anyone wants to judge, or at the very least, make an informed opinion, I urge you to read previous posts, especially pertaining to my relationship with the Exhibitionist)
I suppose I felt no shame for my decision because he wasn’t just some random, one night stand I would be bringing home from a bar, not that I think there is any shame in that either. To each their own, and we have all been there. I gave myself the possibility of permission because I felt like it was natural, it was many years in the making of expectation, and I guess I also felt like we owed it to ourselves, and that it would be amazing. I guess in the end, I wouldn’t really feel like I would need to justify it in any way. Besides the fact that it would be no one else’s business, it was something I felt that I might or might not want, but not for perverse reasons, or for revenge, but because it was something that I thought would be amazing, and spectacular, and perhaps after so many years, too many years coming, too many years in the making, too many years of unsatisfied anticipation, it would just be great for what it was: much anticipated, unbridled passion. Dirty, sweaty, kinky sex. Uninhibited release, etc, etc…
But what I thought it might turn into did not happen at all, and I am not sorry or remorseful about the way I feel about that either. I met up with him right before we went to lunch, and it was clear that we were both happy to see each other, but also both slightly nervous. We went for a nice, leisurely lunch, stayed for about an hour and a half, went back to the place where he was house sitting, and continued to leisurely converse, and that was all we did. We spent four and a half hours together, laying on each other on the couch, talking about nothing all that serious but nothing all that trivial either, and we didn’t so much as kiss.
We have tentative plans to meet up again for lunch or dinner when he is back in town in January. Maybe in January things will go differently, and maybe they will go the same. Either way, it will be nice to see him again, converse, eat and drink well, and see if we are feeling more relaxed and comfortable with each other…
I spoke before about Achilles heels. Perhaps the reason I am content to not have an emotional or physical relationship with someone right now is because my Achilles heel has been mended. At least, my predominant one. As for my second, I will always have my friends (who are fucking amazing, selfless, warriors. My friends are the most incredible people in the world, without a doubt. My friends are the family I have had the luck of meeting, and the honor of welcoming into my life as they have welcomed me.) The family you are born with will always be your kin, and they will always hold a very special and dear place in your heart, but the family you are lucky enough to choose, these people are your TRIBE. These people speak the same language, and there are times when you do not even need to speak, because nothing more can be necessary than a glance, a nod, a glimmer in the eye, and they understand everything you are thinking and feeling without you even having to say a word. You tribe is your adopted family, the people you are fortunate enough to make the fatal choice or whether or not you want this person to have a significant effect on the path you take in life. In many ways, your tribe is more meaningful than your family, because with actual family, you have no choice. You are dealt a hand and you can take or leave it, but a tribe is the hand you consciously choose, for better or for worse. Without my tribe, I don’t know where I would be now, but because of my tribe, I can thankfully say that I am in a good place, and we all continue to support each other in unique ways until we are all standing on our own two feet again, and will look back on our moments of tribulation with a smile on our lips, a laugh in our breaths, and with a little luck, a glass of champagne in our hands.
So as for my predominant Achilles heel, I would have to say, so far so good. I think I’m in love. It’s the best of both worlds, which is so ironically fitting for me. I mean, why choose between box seats at the opera or smack in the middle of the moshpit at a Social Distortion concert? Why should anyone ever have to choose between the two if they don’t want to? Why must it always be one or the other, and never both? If living life to its fullest to me means being able to equally enjoy both scenarios, then why should I only get one option or the other? Why let society choose when I can choose for myself? As far as work is concerned, I get the best of both worlds, and I could not be happier. One day I’m in the cellar, rockin’ the army pants, faux hawk, no makeup, combat boots, climbing barrels, and the next day I’m dressed to the nines, full makeup, hair done, lipstick on, pouring wine, sipping wine, and talking about wine, or else anything in the entire fucking world from TED talks, to news, to movies, novels, politics, guns, food, languages, travel, hazardous waste, random facts, and any other possible subject anyone can come up with to discuss in the tasting room.
It’s funny the way life works out sometimes. Two years ago, I was the lowest I have ever been, because of work. But the way I see things now, I’m the highest I have ever been, also because of work, but I never would have gotten to where I am now, had I not ever been where I was back then.
As far as what transpired between the Rapist and I, it brings a tear to my eye, but not a sad one. It’s just a shame really. I had so much love to give him. But I will spend my energy bettering myself until I find another who is worthy of all I have to offer. In a way, it, along with several aspects of what has transpired in my life over the past two years, reminds me of how I felt and what I wanted for myself when I returned from studying in Spain, and what I learned from my relationship with the Rapist is that I would rather like to live my life along those lines again, when I returned to the States and decided that I wanted something different for myself and not live my life in some sort of planned out, specific way, the way society says we are supposed to live. Back then, I truly thought that I no longer believed in love, and wanted to live a life pursuing passion, and passion alone. I believed then that I would live my life from there on out writing, filling my days with literature, great food, delicious wine, amazing friends, epic conversation, striving to learn and master several more languages, shun actual, committed relationships, and only take lovers from time to time, to satiate my fickle heart and tempestuous moods, and to tickle my clit, of course! I feel a change in me. It began about a week ago, and it is exciting, and inspiring, and I feel my life taking a turn for the positive. It’s about time! And so the sometimes bitter tear that forms in the corner of my eye, yet never builds enough liquid to actually fall is my determination. Could I have ever loved him enough to abandon my dreams? Was I a fool to have believed in love at all? Perhaps. But it’s a pain that provokes inspiration, and a new wicked determination. So now, with narrowed eyes and a crooked grin upon my lips, my convictions have been renewed, and, more than ever before, do I want to voraciously pursue my dreams. I’ve even added a couple new ones to the list…
