I don't know what to say. I went into this not knowing what to say. I know it already yet I can feel a pound in the back of my skull very upset I have no real clarifying words for the things draining my head.

Am I empty? I don't know. I hate days where I feel like I know nothing and existence is a far off concept that seems alien to me. I can stare at my hands and pick up my fingers and type but for some weird reason they don't feel like mine at all. Is my body just like the land? Everyone tries to make a claim, but it belong to nothing but mother earth. Or perhaps, in my own hapless metaphor, it means I own it? I may have written myself into a corner. Perhaps this body is really mine. Just wish I could feel it. Every touch feels so dull and odd and foreign. I don't like feeling foreign.

Nothing's really being weighing yet a can feel my back bending, the muscles sore and tender from a weight I didn't realize they bear. Are they actually feeling the imaginary weight that eats my head away or are they just so very tired too? I understand if they're tired. I'm so very tired too.

I don't want to say I'm out of my mind, though, no. Not even with the oddity that are my nerves and skin. I'd rather say out of my head; I'm not unsane and I'm not deadly I'm just tired and worn and strewn across myself in such a fashion that my favorite limbs feel so strange. Perhaps because they can still function while the rest of my feels other-
wordly.

I've lost them. There were enough words swimming in my head to send them every which way but now I seem even too tired to keep my eyes open to see them. I feel out of my head. I know it won't last, and that keeps me sane. But it doesn't make me feel whole again.

My life and my eyes look so towards the sky that it scarcely notices the calamities within. I look inside the valley but there are years of rain, and I wonder how I could drain the plains again, to stop them from being so heavy. That beautiful blue sky was so unattainable, that now as my wings float me above I look below and realize they stark horror I was blind to. It seems only once I was above it that I could really see how everything is drowning.

But how do I change anything now? I'm not apart of the place I left long ago, and I have no ability to go back. The shadows of those deep waters are something I can't even picture anymore.

Sometimes, though, if I see a bright red ribbon or a piece of glass, I'm painfully reminded of where I can't go back. The place I ran from and forgot only to awaken once again. Nobody may have blinded me and after so long my eyes are clear once more. But I almost wish I were still sightless to save myself from the horrid landscape that was previously what I called home.

I may be equipped with my strength after so many years of jumping off cliffs until I couldn't fall. Yet it still doesn't make horrible things any less horrible. It only ensures I won't jump off again and this time refuse to fly.

I know my worn, hardened heart wishes only to push all of it away, to pretend none of it happened. But I know at its core, the softened part warmed by kind hands, that its something I must face and use to grow even more.

The misery of my land and the rain and the pain are hard to bear. Its more than any person deserves to bear. But perhaps it will only make me better. Perhaps it will only make me stronger. Perhaps, after I survive this too, this time I can fly to the stars.

Its a ride, ain't it? Not just yesterday. Not just today. it will never end. Are you happy?

All the dark parts of me you hate have been exasperated by your selfish actions. Are you happy?

All the parts of me I love and am proud of you call a phase, and insist it'll be gone one day. That's exactly what I fear, and exactly what you hope. Are you happy?

The only person that makes me feel accepted and wanted just the way I am is someone you ridicule and dismiss, making me fear even more being who I am around you people. I feel that you hate me before you get to know me. Are you happy?

I always felt like a monster and in turn became a liar. My brother never feels safe to express so he is practically emotionally dead. My Grandmother showed who she was and tries to make up for her transgressions, and now is excommunicated regardless of her attempts. Everything different be something you squash and beg to hide away. Are you happy?

Now thinking of my past, my childhood only makes me sad and upset. I blocked out most of it until my head could handle it. The way you treated me wasn't acceptable. I shouldn't have been your secret, your emotional parent, your little monster. I was supposed to be a kid. That's something you can never give back to me. Are you happy?

I need space. You will feel me pulling away, and you won't be wrong. It breaks my heart but I need this. I need me. And I certainly can't spend my life cowering painfully beneath the height of my tremendous love for you or ultimately despising you for what you've done. I have to leave, at least for a little. Are you happy?

I never wanted this. I always wanted family, and I always loved you so strongly. But as I sit here and sob over the mere thought of trying to speak cheerfully about my childhood, I should not have to sob while asking myself questions. One keeps ringing in my ears. Are you happy?

I don't want to ever lose you. But I can't keep you right now either. The only way we can last is to part ways for awhile, and let me breathe and show you the things in my pocket and the heart I have grown. I can't love you when you love someone I only pretended to be. When I'm better, when you're better, then we can be a family. Then we can be happy.

I just want to relax and sleep. I want it to be comforting. I'm not exactly anxious but I'm not exactly calm. So what is up with my head.

I don't like my body much. But I don't hate it much. But I also don't know if I'll ever truly enjoy it.

I worry about writing and showing my boyfriend because last one he said was uninteresting. I'm scared of uninteresting. Was it my writing, my words, or me? He almist certainly means nothing malignant by it, but my head is still a recovering paranoia addict and writing is its worry kryptonite.

I worry on and off about my actual writing prowess. I worry more often about finding a new novel to write. If I tell everyone tht writing is like breathing to me, then why aren't I breathing more?

I'm a little stressed about this semester. Not class-load wise, but because of the wearing down in my bones I feel sometimes. I'm just doing so much. All things I love. But so much.

I'm trying not to worry about family stuff. Its not helping me and there's nothing I can really do. Its just hard.

I can see me again. That's something that's good though. In fixing myself I lost the goofy, selfless me that used to be and I am so happy to see her again.

I'm working on my abandoment problem. I think that's why bring alone bothers me so much now. Now that I have people, and I know what its like to feel like I belong, I'm so afraid of being alone and locked up in my head again. But I'm spending more spurts alone to deal with it, and I'm not dead or abandoned yet so something must be working.

I have a gorgeous sleepy boyfriend who sleeps next to me every night. That something that always makes me smile. I may be unique and fun and cute, but it still astounds me this adorkable, brilliant, funny man likes to spend his time with me. Not complaining, but with all the possible brilliant girls he knows he meets, he picks the crazy, writing obsessed dreamer who just happened to stumble upon him. I just can't believe I get to look at his face so much. His face, his mind, all of him, it just... He knocks me out.

Things are complicated. And I'm always weary and always a tad stressed and always busy. But I'm happy too. And I'm not alone; I'm out here, for far longer than just one day. I belong somewhere, and I am loved somewhere. I my still have a thousand miles to go, but I can't believe the thousand I've made it through.

Guess I'm not too shabby, even if I am Grace from Wonderland.

I can remember this moment just as clearly as if it happened an hour ago. there was this one night you texted me, long after you said you'd gone to sleep, and told me you couldn't stop thinking about me. It was early in our relationship, so it made sense, honeymoon phase and whatever. But it still makes me smile so much because it was brilliant, unromantic you staying up into the wee hours of the night thinking of crazy, turbulent me. It was ever so poignant considering how much I disliked myself then and how much I adored you.

You started messaging me with song links and lyrics, clumsily trying to explain why certain lyrics totally fit how you felt about me and only those parts. It was adorable and even now I can close my eyes and picture myself curled up and so in love with this clutzy expression of affection.

The song you kept on talking about, half drunk with exhaustion, was a song called "Always". You quirkily were insisting to ignore the parts of the songs that were negative, and just focus on the parts that talked about always thinking of me and having trouble living without me, or something. It was so late at night and so silly and so incoherent, but I can feel it. I can feel it in my bones, my blunt boyfriend getting all mushy about me.

I know we have some problems right now. I need to stop erupting and blaming my issues on you. You need to stop threatening the end of our relationship when I upset you. I need to give more focus on to bettering our relationship and myself for it. You need to open up again.

But when I can close my eyes and remember the guy who cried over the first poem of mine he read, or the one who couldn't handle seeing me so hurt when you first learned about it, and the one who's so brilliant, who's so determined, and strong, and you, I can't fathom letting that go. Letting you go.

Recently in one of my classes my teacher talked about the mystery of why writers, who sometimes don't like people very much, still talk to a lot of people. I know why I do. People fascinate me, how they think, how they act. And I think I love learning how you think the most. It fascinates me. It may not be my way, and it may not be what I think is best sometimes, but its mesmerizing watching you be you. Watching you do the things you do. Not only do you supplement my emotion-driven, wild, writing ways, but you always inspire them. You inspire me. I never feel a need to be you, but I always feel a need to be better for you, for us, and for me. I always feel a need to grow. Maybe sometimes it kicks my *** when I need to take a breath, but in the end?

I'm going places. I hope to always go places with you.

I know going back doesn't work. I know I don't exactly want me back then either. But I know with you I have moments with you, with me, with US, that always just make me stop, take a breath, and smile with how wonderful to me they look.

You're wonderful, dear. Not perfect, I will kick your cute *** before you start going there, but just right. Just what I need.

I don't really know where I'm going anymore. I just love you. I think I always will.

Always.

Never knew that word would ever make me smile instead of curl up in fear. Well, I guess that's where I'm at, love. Even when its hard. Even when I need you to alter things a bit. Even when you're frustrated with me because I'm not where you want me to be. I may not like you that second, but of course I'll still love you.

I always will.

Dear Younger Grace,

Things feel so suffocating to you, don't they? You don't quite feel it consciously, since it is so ingrained in your life. But those few moments you try to take a deep breath, you feel it. You know you're not breathing. You haven't in years, have you?

Well, years later, you can breathe, Grace. Maybe not always, but much more than you've ever felt before. And its beautiful. Its alive. Its all you ever wished breathing and living and belonging to feel. You finally have a home. It was hard, a lot of years of hard pain, but you made it. You're alive, and you're breathing.

I blamed the bipolar for all of it for a long time, you know? All of my pain and hiding and fear. What else could it have been? It always was me. It only could be my fault I was always alone. Why I thought I would always be alone, in the end.

You spent so much time feeling like the beatings of your heart were the footsteps of a monster. The way you were raised only enforced it. You existed in the world around you, but you never were apart of it. You were always locked away, as if watching from afar, never allowed a singular day as yourself out there. After all, whenever did a monster deserve to go outside?

The bipolar yes, was an interesting beast.It never helped the situation.  But the house you grew in told you that difficulty was something to hide, that it was ugly and needed to be put away. You were there to make others feel better, not you. You were their golden daughter. You were their legacy and future. People would only revile and hate you for the secrets in your head, so you had to be hidden. Weakness was impossible. You were to be stone. Ergo, the only friends who really knew you for most of your life were the silent words on your papers and the stone heart lying within your chest.

The people who raised you never wanted you. They wanted the girl they wanted you to be. That was an agent that tore you apart for years.

There it always was, in your head, this yearning to be normal and to not feel so outside. To feel like no one knew you. To feel like a human being and not this monster. But you never could free yourself in the place in which you grew, where after a short time they expected so much of you and every day you defied you felt more monstrous. The chasm between finding yourself and being what they wanted only left you monstrous, disappointing, and heartbroken. All you wanted was one single day to feel like a person. Like your own person. But it always felt like that day would never come. You were a monster; being free only hurt people.

Well, I'm here to say that's all wrong. You are not a monster, you are not ugly, and you deserve none of the ridicule you have given yourself. You were raised to believe that these emotions you were built to feel made you uncontrollable and toxic. But you are merely a woman, a human, trying to live a life they want.

You have a lot of scars, from others and yourself. You have lost many in the process. You may even lose those who raise you. But you are loved, you are strong, and you are important. And you are all of that while you are this so called monster you were convinced was in your head. You are enough as the person in your head, Grace. More than enough.

Things will be hard. They will never not be hard. But maybe it will help give you a small smile knowing that you won't just have one day out there. That foreign place where everyone else seems to live? That place you feel too unworthy and monstrous for? One day, you will live out there. And its so beautiful, Grace.

You love out there, and it is worth every ounce of torture you walked through. And what's crazier still? Out there doesn't think you're disappointing either.

Love,

A Free Grace