All or nothing at all

There was a time when I thought I wasn't capable of loving again... Or at all... Even for a moment more.

Every time I would sit down to write a love story it turned into the death of a soul... A beautiful, elegant soul.
I felt sorry for the character because all she or he would ever know was that they lost their sweet innocence because of me.  They lost their wonder because I didn't have wonder to give them.  That they lost their joy because I had lost mine.

Then I fell in love again... I believed him.  I believed that this love story was the one that wouldn't end in sadness, carnage, a breaking that was unrecoverable... And, even though he broke me and to be fair, I broke him as well.  For the first time: the remnants of that real true love have followed me.  It has guided me in a way that my characters without souls will find them... Or even in some cases the deeper part of how one can lose the ability to feel love again quickly... With the the loss.

One must understand that some people: they can continue to feel the ability to love even when shattered. And some, like me, they will continue to glue the shattered pieces together hoping that if they are very careful they won't crush the peice they are holding into dust. Praying to a God they dont believe in that they can pull parts of the lost heart from deep down and share it with another... However, more often then not, we come off cold, lost, broken, and unable to communicate the real parts of their souls because the fear is so strong that love is a distant memory. 

For my characters I am sorry.  This time... If I fail at the ability to love properly... I hope you can forgive me and my ability to write a truly heartbreaking tale of love and how it fails you in the most beautiful and real way possible.

Clinically Anxious - Anxious mind of Jacque Maire

So, I have always struggled with my anxiety.  I was diagnosed as "clinically anxious" at the ripe old age of twelve. It was one of the things in my life I've just had to live with... just part of my personality and either I was going to be loved or hated by people.  I was okay with that because I live in a "black and white" world, shades of grey really kind of confuse me.  Not in the: "I don't comprehend how people do what they do" rather the: "I don't get WHY they do what they do and how they can justify their actions without even blinking an eyelash."  I'm all or nothing and an underlying level of uncertainty has always been my anxious twitch. 

To be clinically anxious doesn't mean I am any of the following: crazy,  emotionless, incapable of understanding emotions of any kind, lack of voice of reason due to an overwhelming fear, or over rationalization.  It simply means that my mind goes a million miles a minute, I have about 16 plans for any situation, I like and need my patterns like we need water to drink or food to live.  It means that my way of doing things is what makes sense to me and everything else makes me weary... however, it doesn't mean that I am against trying something new... I just do it with my feet ready to take flight at anytime.  It means that surprises are frightening to me and I don't like them... they aren't part of a plan that I have formed and therefore I don't know how to deal with the first initial moment.  It means that to make changes of any kind in the way I think, live, or function will more than likely cause an internal panic attack that I don't know how to voice and cause me to shrink back into my hermit shell and watch the world go by from the wall.  I have lived my life this way for a very long time and it's word for the most part is a law to me.
 

Mainly my anxiety is under control. I can live and function like everyone else... I am just very uncertain of the world around me.  I am very unsure of people and their actions, even more so their words.  I am almost always left behind because people don't know how do deal with my inability to empathize, moreover understand which feeling is which.  I am unsure of everyone... everything.  I haven't ever really had someone tell me that they were going to stay in my life and mean it.  They thought they meant it at the time... they thought they loved me, all of me... every anxious, OCD, critical hair on my head.  But, whenever things got tough... or Jacque had her up days where; she felt like she could conquer the world, followed immediately by her down days where; she couldn't trust anyone... not even herself.  These are the times when people really decide if they are going to stick in someone with my mental strife's life.  They started questioning everything they thought they knew they loved. They leave. 

I am always upfront with who I am.  I don't hide these things about me... they are part of what makes me fundamentally Jacque.  I call them the Jacque days... These are times when they are challenged by my constant need to be going, talking, understanding, planning... they are pushed to breaking points with me because they don't comprehend how I can go from thought to thought, action to action, place to place and keep track of it all.  They are challenged and they are quick to judge rather than see that this is a constant song playing in my head.  Sometimes I cry and I don't know why... it can be number of things for me but mainly, it's that I have become so inside my head that I have unwittingly alienated myself from the world and then realize that even I need human interaction from time to time.   However; by the time I have realized this I have become starved and needy.  With all of these things said... I still have been known to put my whole self out for a certain select few people and I have been let down over and over again.  I have to say that it is very hard for me to do this without the fear of being left behind yet again.  That is way I keep my circle of people very small... the people I have in my life are very important to me because outside of my family they have never left me.

I would like to point out a few things about my condition. 
1) To have anxiety does not mean in anyway parenthood can't be achieved.  There are methods and ways that you can learn to keep your anxiety under control.  It's not impossible.
2) Friendships are more often than not short lived and not without consequences that leave an anxious person in their heads searching for ways they can remedy the loss.  THIS is where I find myself.  I have lost so much in my life, relationships even acquaintances that could have been really great friends if they had just taken the time to see past my infinite circle of worry, uncertainty, and realization that there is only person capable of seeing your flaws for actual beauty ... you.
3) Anxiousness actually helps with my writing.  It makes me see the stories about people they don't know they have.

As I sit and analyze my anxiety I noticed that things that people don't understand about me... are what make me like my short stories, poems, essays, even my novel.  My whole life I have always loved books... I pretty much always had my nose stuck in one and when it wasn't, I sure as hell wanted it to be. My books gave me perspective on the world at a very young age... the perspective was this: No one was without several short stories that make up their lives, some of them they knew and some of they had no idea were being made.  I loved looking at people from my corner and watch.  It made me feel safe to know that while I was quiet as a mouse no one saw me and I could see them... the stories started at a young age.

So suffice to say after all of that...
I don't feel my anxiety of the world is a burden for me... it's a story... you are all stories in my head, my eyes, and my heart.