Nicole Johnson

So, it’s been a while since my last post and I don’t normally post “bloggy” stuff on here in the sense of “here’s my life story….my day my day, etc.” and have reserved this space for my creative writing pieces. I felt that this post was exceptionally important, because it’s my first post of the New Year and so much has happened.Many of you view and comment on my work and I am forever grateful for this lovely platform to be able to do that, but I’ve come to a realization that none of you really know who I am or the backstory for where my writing stems from. Yes, my poetry is an extension of that and describes the emotion of what I was feeling, but that is only the mere surface.

I grew up in a military family. My father served 41 years,coursing various branches and retired when I was 3 years old. We had an inseperable bond and did pretty much everything together. My mom got me up in the morning, but my dad took me to school and picked up up. My dad was my hero, but a hero I myself was afraid of. He had this mean streak, and you couldn’t always tell what mood he would be in when he got home. Don’t get me wrong, I love my father dearly, but the child version of me was scared to death of him. I was afraid to disagree with him. At that day and age, I did not have a voice and it has made me a bit of an introvert in my adult age.  I can sense conflict a mile away and instead of “soldiering up” as my dad puts it, I run the other way. I don’t like conflict. It sends my body into shock and makes my palms sweat. If it’s at all avoidable, then I would take that detour route.

I discovered many passions in life from my childhood to now. Music transfixes me. Writing unclenches my fists and frees my soul. Painting takes me to unimaginable places, but a family makes me whole.

Growing up with a father who didn’t want to hear an opinion other than his own and damn the world if they dare correct him, I have evolved. I have dated my fair share of men, and women for that matter and I have discovered what it is that I need out of life. I have come to realize many things in my 27 years on this earth just by being in the presence of others. Some of these things are good and some are bad. One thing that I’ve learned is loyalty is an absolute priority. I have made brought certain beings into my life that have been good and bad and each one of these relationships have shaped me in one form or another. I am probably one of the loyalest people that you could ever encounter. I will love you harder and stronger. If I care about you then it doesn’t matter what is going on in my life because all I want to do is make others happy, even if that means my unhappiness in the long run. 

I have shoved my own feelings under the rug on numerous occasions because i was afraid of upsetting people, but I’ve learned that I too need to be happy and many people can’t seem to comprehend that that won’t always be the center of my world every single time. Sometimes I want that loyalty in return.  My dad taught me that. “There are people in this world Pauline that you can count on and there are people in this world that you can not.” he would say to me. “Money can not buy you love. It can not buy you friendship and it can not buy you happiness.”

These words have never rang truer to me in this day and age. I see people all the time shoving money into people’s faces as if it will fix their problems. Temporarily, that may be true, but no one knows better than I do that that simply won’t do. I don’t ask for a lot. All I want is to be in your presence. I don’t need to be spoiled with expensive trinkets on a daily basis to prove to me that you care. I’ve partaken in the occasional retail therapy after a rough day of this thing we all call “life” and it was fantastic! “I’m all better now!” I used to say. Wrong, I wasn’t better. I wasn’t cured. My problems were but beneath the surface, which is why the summer of 2005 I tried to end my own life.

I had had enough. My life was a mess and I felt I had no one to talk to about it and writing for once didn’t bring me solace. My parents were separated and divorced by this point and neither of them wanted to admit that they were the problem of a much bigger issue. I won’t go into further details of all of that, but something happened later on that made me realize I needed an outlet. I wouldn’t allow anyone to place me in a cage and throw away the key. I wouldn’t allow anyone to shape me into a trophy and place me on a mantle only to get dusty.  Many of my failed relationships were exactly that. They found their ‘prize’ and didn’t have a clue what it took to keep it.

There was something else that my dad used to say that I didn’t understand when I was younger, but boy do I now. “What happens in this house, stays in this house.”  I couldn’t agree with this more. I never realized how “private” of a person I am until I used that line a couple years ago. I used to say my life was an open book, but really what I meant was you can open it, but a few of the captures will be coded. I don’t believe everything needs to be shared and out in the open. I believe that people are what and who they are for a reason and there is something that makes them do what they do and if they want to share it, it’s on them and there are only a handful of people I’ve allowed close enough to me to decode those chapters and those people I am still friends with today. 

Based off of previous relationships and encounters with the outside world I’ve discovered quite a bit about myself for 2016. I enjoy having daily “me” time. It’s the time where I hermit and absorb the day by my lonesome. I’m a homebody and everything that I need I can find within my home and if its not there I know where to find elsewhere. Too much noise in a small place makes me nervous. When asked if I would like a glass of wine before a difficult conversation is reassuringly pleasant. One fact that still remains to be true from my childhood is once I’ve set my mind to something, there is a nine out of 10 chance of me changing it.

2014 was the end of a long-time coming relationship. I had spent so much time shoving my own feelings under the rug and afraid to announce the real ones for fear of an audience that I became someone that I didn’t even recognize. I was an angry shell of a woman. I wanted nothing to do with nothing. Everything pissed me off. I would walk down the hallway and hear the whispering simmer. I had spent so much time alone that I forget what it was like to be in the company of others. I had been told so many times that I needed to have longer hair, a larger bust, and that started to feel like I needed those things too. I wasn’t happy with the way I looked. I was paranoid. I was broken.

2015 was a rough year for me and the beginning of the refined me. I felt like Ariel from the Little Mermaid. It felt as thought I was learning how to walk and talk for the first time. It felt as though there were too many lows and not enough highs. It was as if I were thrown into a pool of hammer head sharks and expected to figure my own way out. I was able to get out because a wonderful man saw that I was drowning and rescued me.  I have never in my life felt more transfixed by anyone more than I am by him. I grew up with parents who constantly fought and I knew it wasn’t normal, but then it became the norm. At one point in my life I thought “If you don’t fight, you don’t know what love is.” Now, that can’t be right. Just because there is no huge blow ups, it doesn’t mean that there is no love.

I had been paying attention way too intently to the relationships my parents had with each other that I took it as gospel. It is still weird to be in a relationship with someone that accepts me just as I am and makes me feel like I’m the sexiest woman on the planet. I’ve never had that before. I’ve never come home and had someone other than my dog seem genuinely excited to see me. I’ve never had someone stay up with me all night long and talk to me about life and watch me fall apart occasionally only to pull me in tight. It is truly an amazing feeling to be loved and appreciated and to converse with someone about nothing and everything all at the same time. It is amazing to be loved by someone just as much as I love them. 

It’s 2016, it has been like a breath of fresh air. I haven’t felt this alive, this complete in a very long time. I have been looking for a place to start a family and was searching in all the wrong places until now. I have a wonderful man in my life who has two beautiful children and we share a beautiful home. I look forward to waking to his face every morning. I’m feeling positive about this year  and feel like him and I can get through anything. I can’t wait to see what comes next.