My Mantra

I sit in my quiet room. The window is open and I can hear the crickets chirping and the frogs croaking. The Tualitin river flows thru my back yard and I can hear the water. Water is what I need. 
This is the song of Oregon.

-DeAnna Lynn Arzola

FALLEN

Heaven bent to take my hand
And lead me through the fire
Be the long awaited answer
To a long and painful fight

Truth be told I've tried my best
But somewhere along the way
I got caught up in all there was to offer
And the cost was so much more than I could bear

Though I've tried, I've fallen
I have sunk so low
I've messed up better
I should know
So don't come 'round here
And tell me I told you so

We all begin with good intent
Love was raw and young
We believed that we could change ourselves
The past can be undone

But we carry on our backs the burden time always reveals
In the lonely light of morning
In the wound that would not heal
It's the bitter taste of losing everything, I've held so dear

I've fallen
I have sunk so low
I've messed up better
I should know
So don't come 'round here
And tell me I told you so

Heaven bent to take my hand
I have nowhere left to turn
I've lost to those I thought were friends
To everyone I know

Oh, they turned their heads embarrassed
Pretend that they don't see
But it's one missed step, one slip before you know it
And there doesn't seem a way to be redeemed

Though I've tried, I've fallen
I have sunk so low
I've messed up better
I should know
So don't come 'round here
And tell me I told you so, no

-Sarah McLachlan 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqps9ZdMxs0&index=2&list=PLZjMVXLrzKRBwLjrOT1RreGAeG_F44suu

This is a letter I wrote to my beloved the day after we had the "Honey, I think you might be a sociopath..." talk.
Going on a year now, that my darling knows I'm on to him. Still the same silly game played between the typical "entitled sociopath" and the intelligent gal with borderline personality disorder.
Still my love, still the yin to my yang.
Knowledge is power...

My Darling,

That you allow me to say my peace for forty-five minutes, sitting silently, listening to me as I flood you with all the emotions I have felt in this past year, is one of those things I have always loved about you.
Just one of them...
I let open the floodgates in an attempt to have you realize that what I HAVE learned about you, know about you, whether you feel that I do or not, is a plus, not a negative. Knowing what it is that makes you tick is surely far more important to me, as well as comforting, than it is for you, I understand. However, as I listen to your words, I hear you say that I do not.
I tell you fifteen times in forty-five minutes that I love you, yet, this is NOT what you hear. You say that my words and my actions are irreconcilable. I disagree, especially at a time when my faith in you is tested and the opportunity to undo you the way you had me undone has arisen with a vengeance. I completely had you. I even told you I would never betray you. Instead, I betrayed myself in an apparent futile attempt to cover you. I want you to know for you, they ARE, my words and my actions, one in the same.
Your personality is indicative of my hypothesis in that you reached out to me, not to try to understand that my words are completely complementary in the message, that it is because of you that I love Joshua the way that I do. Joshua...the love of my life. That you have, yet again, changed me. No, you call me for information on what may be going on at that petri dish we call a place of employment, as you have been absent, and do I have any insider information. 
You are perpetually missing the point by not listening to my words. You hear me. You allow me to alliterate. But after forty-five minutes, you cannot take away the message. Am I so wrong in the belief that you are just incapable of doing so?

My Darling, after all this time, I will not allow you to hear that which I am not saying, most especially when it has been so hard for me to do so for so long.

You have changed me in the most spectacular ways. Because of you, I have come to know my capabilities, realize my strength, reconcile my insecurities. Because of you, I know what my soul feels like, and I understand, empirically, my ability to connect on a psychic level. Last night, you were watching Duke lose by eight points. I was downing Rusty Nails. When the phone rang, I was not surprised. I will be brilliantly successful at my Executive Sales job because you placed me in a sales position. We discussed this position and the very next day, I was in a room with you for eight hours, learning how to sell hotel rooms to the elite of the customer base. The same class as your protege', Joshua. Your Joshua.
Please hear me say that you have changed my life, exponentially, and that I love you for this.
My knowledge of why you do the things you do is not a weapon I wish to wield. It simply serves to make me understand you so that I do NOT hate you, which I would never wish to do as I look back on my first year in Oregon.
For I am that one person who will not use that information against you.
Do you understand this? Can you?
It only matters to me that you do, for you. I want you to know this. Again, for you.

Thank you, my Darling. For everything. For everything. 

-DeAnna

*for you, it's DeAnn, it's always been DeAnn, even two weeks ago when I handed you the email from HR...You read my name aloud, "DeAnn", you said, the words rolling off your tongue with some sort of surreptitious joy that only you are aware of, as you always seem to smile when you say my name that way..."Dee" has somehow never seemed right when YOU say it, just as you did last night, so harshly. A year ago, I corrected you. An unfortunate misstep on my part for which I am sorry. For THIS, I am sorry to myself...you seem to say, "DeAnn" better than anyone else I have ever known...
-DeAnn

Broken promises, shattered dreams, devastating 
 perpetration, shaken faith...
I have given all that I can...
You have taken all that I gave...
One word...
"No"
That's all you ever had to say to me...
"No"
Never once have you said no to me...
Never once did you say it to all the others...
How many times has it been said to you?
Your charm is disarming...
Disarming to you, not me...
Consider yourself disarmed...
Undone for a brief moment in time...
One moment in time...
While our damage may be equal, our power is not...
My damage gave me power...
Your damage stripped you of your power...
Control is my tool...
I wield it without apprehension...
Power beats charm...
This is my promise...
This is my dream...
This is my perpetration...
This is my faith.


-Deannalynn Arzola

"Out of the Mouths of Babes"

Out of the mouths of babes...
"Life is messy..." she says. I have spent the day with my friend's daughter. She is an eloquent and gifted child. She is not quite 12. We shot hoops together, today. She is exuberant and full of life and she is enthralled by love.
She asked me, today, "Who is this boy you love, Dee?".
"Danielle", I replied, "He is beautiful and damaged, but he is my boy, and I love everything about him."
In her response, she clasps he arms around herself, in a virtual hug, and tells me, "Dee, life is messy."
In the year that I have known my guy, I have been told by everyone from my daughter to my enemies and everyone in between, that I am crazy for loving him. That he is a cad, and I am a victim, just another victim. I was asked, recently if he ever victimized me. No, he has not. 
In my response to this little girl's question, I said, "He is flawed and damaged, yes, but I love him. I have had the joy of being loved, and I love him, because he is beautiful and in spite of his demons, he deserves to be loved like that. To me, he IS beauty and I love him." 
She just smiled.
And wrapped her arms around herself and said to me, "Life is messy..."
She gets it.
She is eleven years old and she gets it.
She is the only other person, other than me and him who gets it.
Out of the mouths of babes... 

-Deannalynn Arzola

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived all alone with her mother and father. Her mother was a crazy woman who espoused the same enthusiasm in her glory as she did in her depths of hell. Her father could not relate and the subsequent outcome was her mother's suicide. The result of the suicide left a father with a daughter that reminded him of his mad, dead wife. He decided that pawning his daughter off on his mother so that he could find a new wife and create a new family was the best option...for him. The little girl was treated terribly by the step monster and was eventually shipped off to never, never land.
It would take this little girl a very long time to reconcile the fact that her mother could leave her with a man whom she could not stand to be around to the extent that taking her own life was her only option. It took her even longer to reconcile the whole step family dichotomy that had shaken her to the core.
At some point in her life, she came to realize the difference between good and bad people and to tap into her intuition to understand how to differentiate and accept those who would love her, propel her, heal her.
Even as a woman, she found herself to be the mature shell of the child she had always been, and inside, she was scared to get hurt and afraid to let people in. But she did take that chance and let people in. One of those people she wanted to be within her, she learned to love without expectation. She loved him because it felt good to love him and she knew to the very core of her soul that this was a love that he needed, even more than she did. This was her epiphany.
Once upon a time there was a little boy who lived with a mother and a father and a brother. It was sort of a blended family, and that blending seemed to leave the little boy uncomfortable, as if he could not really find his place in his world. He was a sensitive little boy who loved with his heart and soul on his sleeve and he was ostracized for this.
It would take this little boy a very long time to reconcile the fact that his mother would perpetually compare him to his brother in the most negative ways and would seem to never understand his depth of emotion. Perhaps, in fact, he might never conquer the reconciliation that had shaken him to his core.
At some point in his life, he found himself to be the mature shell of the child he had always been, and inside, he was scared to get hurt and afraid to let people in. But he did take that chance and let (very few) people in. Again, however, most of them let him down, as again, he was misunderstood. One of those people he let in did, however understand his demons and was drawn to the sensitivity she understood was his true nature, and when he came to realize that the love she felt for him was all because of her knowing who he really is, he, too had an epiphany.
This little girl and this little boy knew that they were the same and that what they could learn from each other and share with each other would heal them and that one day there really could be a happily ever after.
There is an old Italian saying that goes something like this, "No beautiful rose ever grows from tainted seeds and untended soil."
The seeds of our friendship are pure and honest. Our soil is blessed with love and understanding. The roses that bloom from this contribution are the rewards we give to each other.
We are each others' person and the knowledge of this is the comfort we seek in other ways. The ways which destroy us.
This comfort, however, is good, not destructive, and the practice of this is what perpetuates the most beautiful roses of all...

-DeAnna Lynn Arzola