uglyreal

…but I am, in fact, THIS mad.

 

And isn’t about what I want.

Not anymore.

Because what I want isn’t here anymore.

 

All that is left is just how I feel.

And there is very little control over a feel.

Y’all know this.

 

So, I am THIS mad. I am.

And the mad is what needs to escape.

Because the mad is the tiger inside, clawing, gnawing, gnashing its way out…

…and this is where it lands.

Right here.

On this blog.

It lands here.

This is where it is supposed to be.

There is nowhere else THIS mad can be.

I did my best to explain in Southern Sad. I probably didn’t do the best job. I’m not even all that sure why I feel like I need to explain.

Especially when I know that it really is unexplainable.

I don’t know why.

I don’t know what.

 

I just know I am THIS mad.

 

I know you are worried.

I wish you wouldn’t be.

Because y’all have got to know: I don’t want to be anything.

I don’t want to be angry.

I don’t want to be The Destroyed.

I don’t want to be devastated.

I don’t want to be hard.

I don’t want to be lost.

I don’t want to be confused.

I don’t want to not want to be around anyone.

I don’t want to be afraid.

I don’t want to be anything but the me that I was before he left.

 

But I don’t have a choice anymore.

Because that me doesn’t exist anymore.

And I’m not trying to figure out what it means to be whomever I am now.

I’m just trying to figure out how to be.

 

And here is the alternative: If I’m not THIS mad, then I have to be THAT sad.

No, thanks.

 

It hasn’t been very long.

To some, it probably feels like it has been. Time for me to move on. Time for me to be something other than mad. Time to move to another stage.

Time to accept.

No, thanks.

 

I may not be perfectly real in real life. I may be able to pretend in real life. I may be able to get by in real life. I may be able to get through the moment in real life.

Or I may not.

But here?

No, thanks.

It’s why it is uglyreal.

Please try to understand.

THIS is uglyreal for a real good reason.

 

Because this is the only place I have.

This is the only place I have to be uglyreal.

 

Because I have to live real life.

I have to live in the real world.

And I can’t be uglyreal in the real world.

 

I can only be uglyreal here.

 

So, I may be stuck on mad.

But by Jobe, I think I have a reason to be.

I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. This is not poor, pitiful me. There are plenty of you’s who have every reason to be, too.

So if you want to understand, please try to understand this:

This is the me that is hurting on a level I didn’t know was a level until the man who loved me on a level I didn’t know was a level, left.

On purpose.

 

So, yeah. I’m stuck on mad.

Because there isn’t a level for THAT sad.

 

I don’t want to go there.

 

I don’t want to look at his pictures. They are too familiar.

I don’t want to watch videos of him. They are too familiar.

I don’t want to remember my memories. They are too familiar.

I don’t want to tell his stories. They are too familiar.

 

I don’t want to think too hard about him.

He is too familiar.

 

He is everything that is familiar.

 

He is so familiar that I expect him to pull into my driveway any minute.

He is so familiar that I think he is walking through my backdoor every day at 5:05.

He is so familiar that I still hear the creak of his office chair, and I think I see him sitting there.

He is so familiar that I almost call him when I’m trying to figure out how to get both Leelee from Mimi’s and Mac from football practice at the same time every Wednesday.

He is so familiar that I know what he would say at any given moment in any given situation, but I can’t hear him say it, and that is the kind of unfamiliar that makes me want to beat something until it breaks.

Because if I can’t break THAT, then it is my heart that leaves a wake of tiny, uneven shards everywhere I step.

And I will do anything right now to protect my heart.

Even from myself.

 

Because he is so familiar that my heart simply can’t stand how uglyreal that feels.

 

And THAT sad is not a sad I want.

It is not a sad I can endure.

It is not a sad I can fathom.

Because even if it wasn’t on purpose, even if it was by some other way, he still left.

 

And anyway he may have left would have left me THAT sad.

 

So I choose mad.

Because I AM that mad.

Because it was on purpose, and that doesn’t make sense.

Even if there is a reason, it still doesn’t make sense.

Even if there is an explanation, it still doesn’t make sense.

Because he is THAT familiar.

So there is no sense.

Because THAT familiar was real.

And any reason or non-reason is not.

Not my real.

 

Just uglyreal.

 

I can’t open the door to THAT sad.

Not yet.

 

So if you can, please understand, that nobody wants to be THIS mad.

 

Nobody chooses this…

…unless the alternative is THAT sad.

 

Then, and only then, does THIS mad make sense.

 

It makes perfect sense to me.