Alessandra: Baby This Is Love.

Love. Love. It's really a great thing. It's what people live for, die for, go to war for. It's what people fight for every day of their life even if they don't know they are doing it. When push comes to shove it takes both people involved to really want to make it work, to make it work. It is never easy. It will get tough. It will get hard. It will break you down and it will make you feel like you can't go on but then you just shut up and you feel it. You feel the love. It pulses through your veins and you just know it. You just feel it. You know your life isn't right if they aren't there.

But what do you do if you've already pushed them away? Do you try to fight your way back in? Do you try to win them back? Do you fight for your love or do you watch it walk away? Do you constantly wonder if they think of you like you think of them? Do you see them everywhere and wish they were right here, in this moment? Do you wonder if they would want the same? Do you hate that you can't even have that conversation?

You two never had to try hard. You could always say it how it was. You always said some crazy things but they real, things happened and you just went with it never thinking about how crazy it may seem from the outside because you were a team. Damn. Do you wonder if there is something you could do to have them here? Do you realize that you just can't let go no matter what? No matter who else is there. No matter who else comes along. They aren't them. No one else is them. And that spark isn't there. That connection isn't there.

You have fun, you laugh and you smile. You even might think you're happy for awhile but then it hits you one night, while you're laying alone in bed and you're realizing that you used to lie with them every night. You remember how even when you were fighting and sleeping on opposite sides of the bed that in the middle of the night and the middle of your sleep you'd somehow wind up wrapped around each other, exactly as you should be...and every thing was suddenly right in your world. Because they were all you needed. You wonder if they have moments like that.

You wonder if they remember it. You wonder if you remember the laughter, the tenderness, the love. You wonder if they remember the feel of your hands in theirs, how you fit so perfectly against their chest. You wonder if they remember that feeling of comfort, of feeling completely loved by someone that you completely loved back. You wonder if they remember how you two fell apart, you wonder if they wish they could fix it. You wonder why they didn't want to. You wonder why you weren't worth it. You wonder why you were so easy to give up on. You wonder why...how...they could break so many promises and still say they love you. You wonder if they even know what love means.

But you don't ask them any of that. You don't say a word. You cry to yourself silently while you try to force yourself to forget the way he felt against you. You cry to yourself while you realize that even an amazing human being, who is a great person...still just isn't them and you just don't understand what's wrong with you and why you can't just forget them. You don't tell them any of this because after every thing they've done to you why would you? They deserve a knife in the heart just like the one you got in the back. But you can't stop. You can't just stop...it's not enough. It's not enough to forgive them for what they've done. It's not enough. The pain in your heart is there. It's overbearing at times. It swallows you until you feel as though you can't breathe and sometimes you can't. But it's all not enough. None of it's enough until you can love them right. Until they love you right.

But can they ever? If they came back right now and held you right would you let go? Would you ever want to let go? Would you want to hear goodbye and watch him walk away when it feels so right to have them stand right by your side? The past can't change. Your heart is constantly open, waiting for them to say they feel the same. Waiting for them to say 'I'm for real, let's do this' and you both try, really try. You don't want to ever let go of them because they have your soul. You want them to hold you now. You feel safe. You feel sound. When they're around. Nothing hurts when they're there, when they hold you down, hold you now. You're safe and sound and nothing can get to you because they're around. All the pain you thought you felt, all the pain you've ever known it just floats away because it feels so right just for them to stand by your side. They have your soul...they will always have your soul and you can't help it. You just want them to stand by your side...

Just...don't let me go. Because you have my soul. You just wanted them to know.

Alessandra: Some Things May Never Change

I had a rough child hood growing up. Everyone for some reason thinks its what this beautiful way of living, with my big happy wealthy family with every thing a little girl could ever wish for. I mean, for Christs sake I even had my own horse in the stables. But that's just it, that's all I got. I never had my father when I was little, I have very little memories of him before he left, most of which take place in his black Mercedes. I remember running my hand over the leather interior and watching him smoke a Cuban cigar and sing along to Eric Clapton. He loved Clapton. He called me his princess and believed that I could change the world with the light I have inside of me. He also disappeared and was never there. He gave me presents, jewelry, horses, tuition to Ivy League schools. He gave me every thing he financially could but it doesn't really matter because he was gone and he was what I wanted.

When it all happened, I remember every one in my family hurting. I remember for the first time realizing that my mother was an alcoholic through one too many traumatic moments that, at age 8, I had to handle on my own. I realized that someone I trusted, a family member, took advantage of me. Raping me for his own pleasure, molesting me daily for over three years before I saw something on the TV showing a story about how that happened to another girl like me, saying it was wrong and people could help me. I remember being so scared that I ran into the basement of the house and hid back behind the massive electronic panel box that controlled the house. I had to balance on the wall like a tiny Spiderman to avoid the mouse traps that were set up to catch any mice. I was in the scariest part of the house, the part of the house I used to believe was haunted. And yet I ran there because thats where I felt the safest, because I knew he wouldn't come after me.

He tried to, a few more times before finally turning that sexually molestation into anger. There were multiple times when he would throw me against the wall with one arm, choking me by the neck, punching me in the face repeatedly until my cousin David would run upstairs hearing the commotion and throw him off of me. I would run and hide behind the TV stand, afraid to let anyone touch me. I was 11. My mother had remarried my fathers ex best friend who happened to be a drug abusing lawyer who got violent and abusive when angry. My mother finally broke free from his physical abuse when I was 13 and took me with her to her own place. That's when I finally realized that her alcoholism was no longer just something she did to cope once in awhile that I'd have to watch, it's when I realized that her alcoholism was her.

I had to check on her through out the night to make sure she was breathing, make the right combination of foods before I got ready for school in the AM to soak up all the alcohol she drank the night before so she could function at work, I had to constnatly remind her via post-its of every thing that she needed to do that day so she could remember. I can't count the number of times I was left at school for hours because she forgot me. The nights I had to drag her body from the floor onto her bed. The times I had to fight off her alcoholic rages where she'd start punching and slapping me.

I don't remember all of the details of my childhood because I stopped being a child when I turned 8. I stopped being a child the second my parents become so self focused that they forgot about how they would effect their children. I stopped being a child the second my own blood raped me. I stopped being a child the second I realized that there's no magic in the world...I got lost. For a long time. And I immersed myself in what I could to survive. I took care of my mother, I ignored my own needs for therapy which winded up with me having an eating disorder that proceeded to get my quite ill multiple times. It varied, sometimes my mom would go in tirades about me asking for food because we had none in the house even though she was making millions a year. So I'd stop eating to stop causing problems. Other times she would yell at me to eat more so I would but then I'd get chubbier and she yelled at me then. There was nothing I could do, but love her the best I could, swallow down my tears and just try to survive and get through it.

There are times I've tried to take my own life, there are times that I did things I shouldn't have, there are times I told people things that I shouldn't have, and a lot of times that I didn't tell people enough. The way in which I reacted and handled what was happening to me as I started to mature was not the best way. I wasn't able to see a psychiatrist and actually get help for what was happening. How could I do that when I constantly had to take care of everyone else? My step-dad started protesting in court against my mother for my custody, I began an object. No one cared what I wanted or where I wanted to go, it was the competition and who was better and they both wanted to be the best. Neither of them could probably even name the major I had for the specialized art school I went to. Neither of them were there when I won a Grammy for my school. Neither of them were there when we all won our second Grammy. They weren't there when the Pope requested us to come to Italy to sing for him, when Clinton and Bush both invited us to come sing at the White House and Congress. They weren't there when my best friend died when I was 14, they didn't care when the love of my life and my fiancee, my high school sweetheart, was shot down in Iraq two weeks before he was supposed to come home and be my husband. They didn't care and they didn't notice because what happened to me, what my story was, didn't matter. I was just an object, a trophy to show off.

So I retaliated. I fast-tracked in high school. With the help of my amazing choir director (I was a choir major at my academy) I was able to get emancipated from my parents so I could graduate early and go onto a full ride scholarship at one of the most prestigious music colleges in the country. I was free. And I took full advantage of it. To run away, to get away, to distance myself. I threw myself into my studies, I fast tracked there, I graduated with high honors, two degrees, being called an incredible talent, landed an amazing job that people would literally and have killed for in the past. And yet I realized I never slowed down. I was so terrified of what could happen to me, what might, that I never stopped fast-tracking. I was on the fast-track for everything. And it never ended.

I came back home to see my mother, to visit her. And my heart instantly broke. My mother and I are incredibly similiar. We are driven and stubborn, intelligent and thrilled by business, law, medicine and we follow our hearts. When we love someone we take bullets for them without thinking. We love them no matter what they do because we just love them so. We hurt often but we take the pain because we'd rather have the pain often and be able to help rather then harm. She's an incredible woman. She was a brilliant scientist as head of radiology for one of the largest and best hospitals in the country. When she ran it and was chief, it was number 1. She invested wisely, bought the right kind of company and did the right things to get away from my step-dad so she could have a job and get her life together. I realized that me getting away from her allowed her to greive and get herself together a bit as well. Maybe she was so worried that she was breaking me that she couldn't even function back then? Walking away from her back then, was the hardest thing I've ever done and I sometimes think back and try to figure out if I regret it or if I helped her.

Sometimes, you need to say goodbye to people for them to grow. Sometimes they use you as a crutch and without you letting them go, no matter how much you love their prescence, they need to be able to survive and learn life's lessons on their own. Sometimes, you saying goodbye is you saying I love you more than anything. Sometimes, you saying goodbye is showing how much you love them. Goodbyes like that are mostly temporary, hopefully. If they aren't, they aren't. But you need to let them go because they have to grow and you need to be able to move forward without them holding you back and torturing you mentally/emotionally the way that they do. They love you and they may never wish pain on you but they can't help it. That's when goodbye is needed. When love just isn't enough. When strength is what is needed so you can part your ways and let them find their way and hopefully they'll find their way back to you. You say you have to go and leave them alone but that they should always know that you love them so much. You say that you want them to stay safe, to think carefully, to be kind and that you hope to see them soon.

I've had moments like that with many people and unfortunately the fact that I first had to learn how to let go was with my mother. It was the most brutal, and unfortunately the most painful and it did mess me up and I am aware of that. I know the ramifications of those actions and why I am the way I am and why I respond and act how I do. I know it all stems from my childhood, from my adolescence and what I went through. I know all of it won't change because it's the past and the only thing I can do now...all these years later is to change myself. I can't just say I've learned how to be better, I have to show it, to prove it.

Yesterday I felt 13 all over again. He was back, physically abusing me again and my mom was there, doing nothing like before and I realized that while I may have changed they havent. They're stuck in the past still because they're afraid if they let go of the past what will they have? They think if they let go of what has happened before they won't be able to move forward. No matter what I say to them, they won't listen to me, they will just have to find out for themselves and that...is the most painful thing to watch.

I won't cry, I won't fall down, I won't break. I will take care of myself, I will fight everything I have to stay alive, to move forward, to be happy, to love with my whole heart, to be the best person and friend I can be and I will never let anything stop me. I won't let negativity win like it used to. I refuse to. I'll get by. I'll succeed. I'll survive. When my world crashes down and I hit the ground, I will turn it all around again, just like I've done before time and time again. Don't even try to stop me. Because I know what I'm capabale of and that's just it. I can survive. I can fight. I will fight and I will win. I will survive this. I will survive all of this. And come out of this shining. Because some days it may feel like a devil town but the light does shine in the darkness. Et lux en tenebris lucet.

Have faith in me, and I will always have faith in you.

Alessandra: Love isn't enough.

I know its been long since I've posted anything on here. Its been long since I've written anything period. I know that's not healthy. That what I've been going through isn't healthy. This cancer stuff, that's easy. But life? Life is fucking hard. It hits you over and over and it just doesn't stop. It doesn't ever want to stop and why should it? Just when you think you're numb to the pain that's been done to you, that your heart just couldn't possibly feel pain any longer.

He does something, you feel that hope inside you die, that dreamer you used to be before him vanish. You feel empty and dark, angry and bitter. He threw you away literally. What type of person does that to someone? You don't love them. That's for sure. Nobody treats someone like that if they love them. All I feel when I think of him is anger and pain, resentment and bitterness, rage unlike anything I've felt before and this full body shaking need for revenge for all of the agony I've been put through. After all of the times he's burned me, all of the times he's fucked up, all of the times he's done me wrong, I accepted them and him. Never once turning my back.

Because that's what love is.

Not this. Its not anything like this. This is evil and he's pushing me away and throwing me out because he hates how much he feels for me and he hates that he can't see me. His exact words? "I can't hug something I don't see. So I found something else to occupy my time".

I hope his new girlfriend, that backstabbing trashy piece of shit lying manipulative whore, knows exactly what she is to him. And I hope he knows there is nothing that I do better then revenge.

I may have cancer, I may be fighting off death right now, but I will still make you feel so fucking dead and hurt inside all without doing a single fucking thing to you. I will be happy, healthy, pretty again when I'm full of life and you will realize that my form of revenge is the best kind, its the kind that breaks your heart because you'll realize I finally forgot you, that I finally just don't love you anymore.

Nothing in this world ever felt as amazing as you wrapped around me. I've never felt like I was in heaven more than I was in those rare moments I had you near. But you gave up. I can handle fuck ups, lies, mistakes...but no one gives up on me. You fucked with the wrong girl. I hope you're happy. Maybe now you're finally completely dead inside. Congratulations, you've successfully become the type of man you never wanted to be- an immature child.

Carlina: Those coping mechanisms

The past few days have been such an emotional rollarcoaster. Yes, those again.

I saw the therapist on Thursday evening and she struck something inside of me that hasn't really even been jolted before.
I hadn't realized until I was reflected on the things she said how my feelings were thrown to the wayside and invalidated when I was going through an indescribably difficult physical and emotional battle, in addition to just being a teenager.
My family, my friends, my doctors, and even my first therapist all told me that I was overreacting, being melodramatic, a pestilent child. That I was too upset and shouldn't be so angry...

One should always consider how impressionable a child's feelings and coping skills are at 15. How vulnerable that time is, regardless of personal hardships. It's not fair to be told to stop feeling so much when you're coming to terms which the knowledge that you have an incurable disease and your family was horrible to you for years.
I should have been consoled. I should have been encouraged to grieve over the inevitable loss of my childhood. I should have been expected to feel so much.

But it wasn't. I was forced into silence. I was pushed away like nothing had happened. It all was swept under a magnificent rug, who would possibly see the ugliness underneath it?

If you tell someone something over and over again, they will, after awhile, begin to believe it themselves. Revolt against any internal dialog that might contradict it.

The magnitude of what occurred over years of my life hasn't, until very recently been realized. I've pushed it so far down, into the corners of my mind for so long it became my normal.

My own aversion over an sort of affection has confused me for years. Why haven't I found consolice in another human being? But the answer was there all along, it's really quite obvious isn't it?
Nothing has been resolved. I've been spinning my wheels, trying to fix all the external forces around me, trying to approximate exactly who or what was causing such numbness inside me. I didn't even know. I have no idea I was so numb.So cold. So disjointed.

No one really understands me but I think that's because I don't understand myself. Sure I can project confidence, a air of happiness. Shoulder back, light in your eyes, a swing in your hips, a crooked smirk tugging at the corners of your mouth. Baby, I can tease you. But it's not true. No not at all.

Those coping mechanisms that have been surgically implanted are truly fucking up my entire life.

But it's not my fault. I've been blaming myself for far too long. Fuck that. I can't do it anymore. The scratch on my wrist, the need for narcotics, the pain of having to eat, the terrible whispers on my left shoulder tell me I can make it all go away. Stop it. Stop it all. I didn't ask for any this. I was just a child. How can you blame me? I have a right to feel something, dammit. Who are you to tell me otherwise?

Carlina: Fuck you

Fuck you.

Fuck you for not believing me.

Fuck you for giving up.

Fuck you for telling me I was wrong.

Fuck you for telling me how I should and shouldn’t feel.

Fuck you for yelling at me.

Fuck you for seeing my pain and not acknowledging it.

Fuck you for making me want to hurt myself.

Fuck you for belittling me.

Fuck you for making me feel like I wasn’t enough.

Fuck you for doubting me.

Fuck you for abandoning me.

Fuck you for turning me into a robot.

Fuck you for making me want to give up.

Fuck you for making me want to OD.

Fuck you for making me want to starve myself.

Fuck you for making me want to tear into my skin.

Fuck you for making me want to die.

I hate you for invalidating my feelings. I hate you for making me feel weak and inferior for having them. I hate you deduced me to nothing more then a pestilent child. You fucking gave up on me. Hell, if I hadn’t fought you as hard as I did for as long as I did, I’d still be in pain.

I hate the war you created.

Fuck you for not giving me the chance to grieve. For making me feel like nothing had happened. For excusing it as if nothing was wrong.

Fuck you for turning me into this person I don’t want to be. Fuck you for holding me back.

How could you just give up on me? How could you stand there and see me in chronic pain and think I was making it up? There were days I couldn’t even stand and you fucking pushed me into school anyways. Hunched over in pain and you didn’t even care.

Do you know what it’s like, going into a controlled environment in chronic, untreated pain for day after day, not being able to go home or tell anyone and have to sit through classes like everything was ok? And then get yelled at me when I wasn’t making good grades? Fuck you.

You had a choice to believe me. You didn’t. Even now we can’t talk about it. I can’t talk about it. It hurts to goddamn much.

Fuck you for making it all about you. For turning me into the bad person because you fucked up and couldn’t deal with it.

Carlina: BFF

My best friend has cancer. When I tell people this, I usually get some bug eyed, sad faced, "oh gosh how horrible" kind of expression. To which I tend to tilt my head to the side, squint my eye, and say something like, "yeah, but she's a cancer fighting ninja, you know?"

The thing to know if you've got a loved one with a chronic disease is that they are NOT their disease. Yes, it's a part of them. Yes, it shapes them. And yes, it can, at times consume them. But they are more then that. And you're doing not only them a disservice, but also yourself if you can't get past that.

Look beyond the physical and see their will to survive, their sense of humor, their dreams and hopes for the future. Support them when things feel hopeless, renew their sense of purpose, rationalize when you need to, and above all, love them endlessly and let them know that they are not alone.

And you know what? My best friend gives all that back to me. Even though my problems seem far less important, she still hears, listens, and supports me right back without comparison. Why? We're best friends. It's what we do. Even when she's in horrendous amounts of pain and under a lot of stress, will still attempt to walk me through my inability to properly get the sound to work on my Blackberry Messenger.

She's a smart, witty, passionate, beautiful, tough, hilarious, stubborn, shoe lover with a knack for seeing love and hope in many things.

Cancer is just a word. It's not a person. It's a disease but it's not a life. Never give up, never back down, and always, always stick with them. Trust me, it might not always be easy, but it sure is worth it.

Carlina: That idea of love (what the hell does that mean?)

I'll be the first to admit I've never been in love. It's not because I'm cynical about it or have some deeply seeded arguments against the idea, I've just never felt it. At least romantically, anyway. What the hell does love even mean?

I suppose you could call me a head thinker. I don't "go with my gut" that often this in turn seems to leads to they rationalities of what love can and can't conquer.

The idea that love is everlasting, limitless, and unconditional are false. Do I believe that love can stand the test of time? Yes. Do I believe that everyone has one soul mate? Not really. And there must always be conditions to love. This is a stand that shall not budge. Abuse, affairs, a change in disposition... all these things are conditions. And they've got to be there.

I suppose I just don't understand. And this could all just be naivety.

I don't fall for people easily or often. I never really have. Even in the depths of my teenage years I wasn't entirely convinced of this idea, and never really found anyone to change my mind.

I'm just not attracted to that many. I guess you could call my standards ridiculous. Or maybe a little insane. But I don't think so. I can't help what I like. But I have such trouble finding it that it frustrates me to no end. Yet I refuse to lower them. I don't see why I should. I'm not interested in mindless hook ups but I don't fault others that are. We're all looking for different things and who am I to judge them?

Intellect is the sexiest thing to me. Nothing is more attractive then raw passion. When you look into their eyes and you can just tell how important that something is to them.

Openness is another big one for me. The person that can be comfortable with who they are and accept and think of people no differently because they aren't like them. I try to live my life in a non-judgmental way. It's probably more innate then anything else. I don't always exceed in this, but I certainly try.

I also seem to gravitate towards warmth and honesty above other things. I don't revel in drama or this idea that feeling or thought should be toyed with. In my eyes, assumptions are more dangerous then truth. I find honesty to be such a rare quality these days. I don't understand why people feel the need to beat around the bush. Truthfulness has almost become passe in a way. It's a tiny bit tragic.

And where would I be without sarcasm and wit? They're the highest forms of humor, you know. To be with someone that didn't share this belief would be kind of miserable.

So what the hell is love? A combination of what I stated above? No, probably not. In my head, I feel like when the right person comes along I should just, "know". I'll look into their eyes and can just tell what's there, what's between us. 21 years have passed and I've yet to find this person. A part of me thinks I just haven't really been looking. There were certainly big chunks of my life that weren't conducive to share with anyone else, because it wouldn't be fair to them. But now I'm starting to believe that there might be room, in a tiny corner of my heart, for another. Maybe.