How to be.

It's past midnight. 

I'm laying in bed, and I want to sleep. 

It starts in my heart. 

It starts with a skip in the beat. 

It flows through the rest of me quickly. It doesn't take long. Before I know it, I can't see. 

The room is full of darkness of the densest kind.  The kind that makes it so you can't see past your nose. 

I know my alarm is on. The light should be showing from it, but it seems to have suffocated. And I'm next. 

"If you loved me, you'd stay." 

I hear this voice echoing in my head for the thousandth time as my heart breaks for the 365th time. 

I do not count days in hours, but by the moments that pass between my heart breaking. It just seems to work with everyone else's length of day as well. Usually. 

I cry. 

I cry for what I lost. 

I cry for the love I had in my hands but accidentally lost grip of. I watched as it started to slip out and I went to grab for it a little too late and ended up falling in the process. Dropping pieces of myself everywhere. Shattering on the ground that he was walking on. I sat in my broken pieces for months. There were pieces cutting deep in to other pieces of me, causing my body to work wrong. 

I cry for my inability to put myself back together right. 

I cry for memories I had to file in to the back, darkest areas of my mind, hoping that they would get lost in the piles of everything I need to forget. 

I cry for the people I couldn't help while I was smothering myself in hatred and loss. 

I cry for the days I wasted crying. 

But mostly I cry for the words I wish I could tell me. 

And while I cry, I dream. 

I dream of finding myself. Not figuratively. I mean seriously, finding 2011 Maren.  I dream of cradling 2011 Maren while she cries. I dream of telling her everything. She's too unsure. 

I want to explain to her everything that is about to happen. I want to tell her of all the moments she will cry in  her car. I want to tell her of all the moments she will decide God must not exist. I want to tell her of all the fights she will have and all of the people she will decide to turn away from. I want to warn her of all the people that will turn away from her. I want to tell her that he won't come back. I want to explain why she shouldn't date someone else that she doesn't ever care about just to get over him. I want to warn her. And then I want to tell her about her wonderful friends. And I want to show her pictures of the Katy Perry concert. And I want to show her music that will make her feel like nothing wrong has ever happened. And I want to whisper inside jokes to  her that she will understand within a few months. And I want to tell her of the 4th of July. And Diamond Rio. And creative writing. And blogging. And Gala Darling. And the women she works with. And the men she will get to stare at. And the movies she will see. And the God that will save her. And I want to tell her it will be better. 

I want to say these things, make her stop crying, and then leave her be to find it out all on her own. 

I cry for the inability to do those things. 

I'm laying in bed. 

It's late. And I want to sleep. 

But, again, it starts in my heart. It starts with a skip in the beat. 

And before I know it, I'm suffocating in darkness. 

I try to catch my breath. 

And I begin to whisper things to myself that I wish I could say to me a year ago. 

"It gets better. It gets better. It gets better..." 

And I know I cannot tell 2011 Maren these things. I know she had to learn on her own. I know. 

But I know I can save 2012 Maren. I know I'm going to be okay. 

And I can breathe again.