No one wants honesty.

And the people who say “I’m just being honest” are really just being cruel.

Kindness matters. But what does it mean to be kind?

And what is truth? What is honesty?

Here is some honesty (in no particular order):

• I am a 45 year old woman who still doesn’t have her life together.
  • I did.
  • Five years ago.
  • When I was married and had a family and a home.
  • But did I?
• I can’t even go into that here.
  • Because so much of my life is keeping everything I really feel locked up.
  • Because I know how much I risk by telling people what I really think and how I really feel.
  • So I’m never really honest.
  • So my life is a carefully curated facade to make everyone think I am happy and doing well.
• Every time I start to get close to “having my life together” something or someone comes along to fuck it all up again.
  • Sometimes that someone is me.
  • But most times it is a combination of someone else needing me and me not being able to say no because I care way too fucking much.
  • So I put myself at risk again and again in order to make sure the people around me are taken care of.
  • Because the truth is – honesty – I learned a long time ago that my wants and needs will always be side quests that I can work on if I get the time.
• The last person to break my heart barely knows I exist and I still haven’t gotten over it.
  • I have dated quite a bit since I became single.
  • But I don’t easily form attachments.
  • It’s stupid but I was very briefly talking with someone months ago and I thought it was leading to something and then it went absolutely nowhere and they kinda disappeared.
  • And I still think about those conversations all the time.
  • But I also know I will likely never hear from or see this person again.
  • We’re still on each other’s social media but that’s just how these things are now.
  • We float past each other.
  • I wonder about them often and they have probably forgotten they ever talked to me.
  • They’re happy.
• I think I am a good person but I am still alone and I hate it.
  • I make lists in my head of what needs to change in my life/in me so my circumstances will be optimal for meeting someone.
  • I have people tell me all the time what is wrong with me.
  • Unless it is about work, no one tells me what is right with me.
  • But when I examine myself, I see a lot of good. Not perfect. No such thing. But there is plenty that is good.
  • And yet…
  • I really hope that someday someone else sees the good that I see.
  • I think I have a lot to offer the world at large and a partner and a pet.
  • I know what I want.
• Some days everything hurts more than words can say. And some days you could not find a more hopeful human anywhere on the planet.
  • Most days are a balance of the two.

Here are things that give me hope (in no particular order):

• Fog
  • Stormy weather soothes the soul too
• Bees
  • And spiders
  • And crickets
• Quirky, indie films
  • And weird little tv shows
  • Cartoons like Adventure Time and Steven Universe
• Neon colors
  • And black, of course
• Piano and violin duets
• The fact that sunflowers absorb radiation and have been used at radioactive sites like Chernobyl and Fukushima
• Spicy pasta sauce
• Spicy food in general, since we’re being honest
• Pokemon
  • This is new but lovely
• The silly, aggressively long titles of some anime
• Ice cream
• Playing the piano and singing
  • I love singing so much
  • So much
• Mysteries to solve
• ASMR
• Some of the people I have met over the last 4 years that I have lived in Iowa
  • Some of you have the best and biggest hearts
• A breeze
• Being outside in the right weather
  • Almost nothing gives me as much hope as this
  • As a child, I grew up in the suburban neighborhoods of St. Charles, MO. Part of the greater St. Louis area basically, if you’re not familiar.
  • There wasn’t a lot of raw nature. I didn’t discover creeks and woods until we moved to rural MO.
  • But the little bit of woods I got to explore as a child almost always became Neverland or a fairy kingdom or the American West during the gold rush.
  • And when I get the chance to hike now as an adult, I let myself return to the realm of make believe and whimsy for just a little while.
  • It is there that I can imagine new and better worlds for myself and my loved ones.

Here are my last few thoughts (in no particular order):

• There is too much good and beauty in this world to give up
• There are too many wonders I want to behold for me to let the bad win
• I deserve good things
• I deserve love
• I don’t know why I haven’t met anyone yet who wants me but that doesn’t make me bad
• There are people in my life that I hold deep in my heart that I have so many things I want to say to them and I don’t because I don’t want to lose them. Because I know what I mean to them and it is not the same as what they mean to me. So I keep everything inside. And I always will.
• I give too much.
• I don’t give nearly enough.
• I work very hard.
• I don’t do enough.
• I am beautiful.
• But not enough.
• I love you.

I love you.