five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes

*cue music from Rent and me turning into a big sobbing MESS.

I am in the stage of my grief/depression where I am a) doing weird shit to my hair,  b) watching musicals, and c) processing things rather than writing about them. Tuesday night, I sought out companionship and brought some pink hair dye along for the ride. Sitting in my friend Melissa's bathroom, the beginning of a closer connection between us started to string together as she patted bright pink conditioner into the ends of my hair. We started talking about exes and a few of my crazies slipped out.

Last summer, the boy that ruined my life anonymously dropped an explicit message in my tumblr inbox, and from there life spiraled downward until I lost my dad. It was my rock bottom that all started with a stupid message on the internet. I have finally been able to process all the fucked upery that was happening in 2012 before I met Justin, which all started with this boy. All sorts of chaos that I brought upon myself. Yeah, some of my mistakes make for pretty good stories now... but some I would prefer never to relive.

The memory of a boy smiling while he's telling you how much he wants to brand you like cattle is a pretty hard one to forget. 

That same boy telling you how much one of his darkest fantasies is to go camping on the woods with you, rape you, and then leave you out there for a couple of days and maybe come back for you. That one is permanently etched into my brain too. 

Someone that loves you would never do those kinds of horrible things to you. They would never physically harm you for their own sick pleasure. They would never ask you for half of your paycheck every single week. They would never make you choose them over your passions in life. They would never dream of putting your personal safety at risk in such an on purpose, life threatening way. 

It's been five years since the most chaotic parts of the mess we created, and I'm still too scared to write about it fully. I'm afraid to expose the darker parts of my soul. I'm afraid to even put pen to paper because I'm terrified of the demons that lay in waiting. I'm afraid to admit my heartbreak and brokenness that resulted from that period in my life. I'm afraid to question my own behaviors, my own values and upbringing and wonder, "Where did I go wrong?"

Looking your own decisions, right and wrong, square in the face and saying, "Oh yeah, that hurt." kinda sucks no matter how much distance, in years or miles, you put between you and them.