In 2010 my twin brother got out of the Marines. He left in 2006 straight out of high school. I still remember the day. My Dad was driving him to his recruiter, and before they left the house, I got up and gave CJ a hug and said good luck. It wasn’t a very long hug, but longer than usual, the type of hug we would give if I were crying and he wanted to cheer me up. He left and as soon as the door shut, I started crying. I think I knew that he was going to be gone for a while, but it didn’t really register that this exact moment was a turning point in our lives.

Prior to this, we had only lived in our new house for 8 months. Our parents moved us in the middle of our senior year in high school, 2.5 hours away. There was so much fighting and arguing, running away, getting in trouble that I guess my parents thought by moving it would solve everything. All it did was transfer all of that negativity into a new house, but then being isolated to it. So my brother joined the Marines.

For the first time in my life, I was alone. I was living in a home with parents who fought everyday, but now I was living in it without my support system.. my twin. I had no idea how drastically my life would change from this. The 4 years that he was gone, I went through some of my lowest lows. But I’ll save that story for another time.

2010. My brother needs to be picked up from the train station in Washington DC, after traveling across the country from Cali where he transitioned out of the Marines and spent a few months just doing whatever. I took the 2.5 hour drive there to pick him up and brought him back to MD. We lived with my parents for a while until one day my Dad and I got into a huge fight. I can’t even remember what started it, but I know that he was in a bad mood and probably said something belittling or trying to argue, and I stood up for myself. My Dad hates when people stand up for themselves, especially against him. He flew into a RAGE, tried bullying me and threatening me and met me eye to eye with the most evil look in his eyes and said he wanted to beat the fuck out of me. My adrenaline was pumping and instead of flinching or crying or shutting down and walking away, I stood tall, looked him dead in his eyes and said “Hit me Dad”. I know his was this close 👌🏼, and his rage was at a peak. He said “youre the fucking devil, bitch. You fucking BITCH” and proceeded to berate me while I walked away, into my room and closed the door. I lost it as soon as I shut the door. I burst into tears and started hyperventilating. The adrenaline was still flowing and I was shaking, but I was so proud of myself for not backing down.

I knew I had to get out of that environment, so the very next day my brother and I found the upstairs of a house for rent a few miles down the street across from the local university. I packed everything I owned in the matter of hours, shoved it into my car perfectly like Tetris and moved out. I want to say this around April 2012.

My brother was not the same person he was before he joined the Marines. He was paranoid, more angry, cocky and addicted to drugs and alcohol. He started to show these signs almost immediately, and our home life (just the two of us in this apartment/house) started getting hectic. Until one day in July. He was sitting in the kitchen listening to music on a speaker hooked up to an ipod. I was in my room, which was only about 15 feet away. I was trying to nap because I had work in a few hours and even with earplugs in I could still hear him. I came out of my room as asked him to turn it down or go in his own room and listen and he just sat there and starred at me. So I asked him again, same response. I couldn’t figure out why the fuck he was being like that, and I was getting upset, so I unplugged the speaker and ALL HELL broke lose. He jumped up so quickly, dug his shoulder into my and pinned me against the wall while he attempted to yank the cord out of my hand. When he couldn’t get it right away he wrapped it around my fist and started tugging it as tight as he could, while my hand was turning reddish purple. I stood up and he let go and slammed me onto the kitchen floor, hitting the table on my way down. His drink spilled on me and I realized he was drinking alcohol. When I hit the ground I was stunned for a second and I threw the speaker at him which was still wrapped in my hand. When I swung it at him it hit his chest a little, leaving a scratch. An altercation occurred after this where we scrapped from the kitchen into the livingroom. He grabbed my throat abd pinned me high up on the wall and told me to hit him because he wanted to fucking kill me. I told him I didn’t want to fight I just wanted him to turn the music down. He shoved me into the closet into a hamper and when I got up and jacked me up by my shirt and threw me across the living room. I crawled to the living room opening and got up and ran into my room and into my closet where I tried to lock the door. He went to get the gun out of his closet and cane and punched a hole through my bedroom door and let himself in. I was in the closet calling 911 when he opened the closet door and I told him to get the fuck out and I was on the phone with 911z I was hyperventilating by the time the cops showed up. They saw the mess in the house and asked me what happened. I told them my side and CJ told him his. We both had marks so we both got arrested.

NOTHING was ever the same. My Dad came to help me patch the hole in the bedroom door and my brother had to move out. He became homeless after living in and out of VA homeless shelters. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and ended up moving to Baltimore, where he still is today. Hooked on crack and heroin.

There’s a bar that is set to a level of love that I truly never knew existed. I’ve been swept away, so effortlessly, so subtly & so sweetly. The first small breeze that reminds you Fall is here. I didn’t know that THIS is what I’ve deserved for so long.

There is nothing chaotic, confusing, scary or violent about it. I feel embraced in all the right places, tenderly touched, not forced but natural like the feeling of the sun caressing my skin. I never knew a man could love so sweetly.

Helllloooooo. It’s Ashleigh.

I want to write so much more, so many important memories that I have… but I don’t think the internet is the right place for this anymore. I’ve got to go off the grid. Completely. No social media, no blog… nothing. Disconnect from this addictive, mindless  brainwashing system.

Excuses.

I don’t want them. I don’t want them as a part of my story when I’m older and looking back on my life. I think excuses go hand in hand with fear, otherwise what’s the purpose? Many people go out into the world, head on, face first, and TRY to make their dreams a reality. Then there are others who dream but make excuses. And those are the people who see a small percentage of their dreams become a reality.

I’m growing, and I can see it like it’s happening right before my own eyes.

First the positive mental attitude has come a long way. I’ve been fixing my habits; running, juicing, eating regular – healthy – meals. That’s where it started. I genuinely feel happier, for longer periods of time. I love who I am. I love that I am allowed to be me with no interjection or opinions or judgments . I don’t have to worry about my thoughts being crazy to someone, or the way I laugh or smile or be told that I’m too fat, too much, too sensitive. I’m just living, as me, for nobody else.. and I love it.

I have seen how sensitive I am, but I don’t judge myself for it.. in fact, I love it. I love how empathetic I am, I love how beautifully I chose to see some things in the world, I love how I imagine happiness and love SHOULD be… I love all of that about me. I love that I’m pushing myself through running, and that I can see a difference in my body. I love what I think is so funny… it’s like becoming best friends with myself.

I don’t think I’ve ever hated myself, but as I’m growing I’m starting to see how much I valued myself… and it wasn’t very high. I’ve always been approached in a sexual manner, before I even allowed anyone to get to KNOW me, I let them feel me. And this time that I’ve had to keep to myself and not allow myself to get sucked into more situations like that, has been some of the best time for me. I don’t engage in those kinds of conversations with people anymore, I don’t entertain an idea.. and you’d be surprised at how many people truly don’t understand what conversation is without sexual innuendos.

I had someone tell me “you’re attractive in an awkward way”.. and I asked them to explain and they said “it’s like you don’t WANT people to like you… like I have to get to know you.” I didn’t take it personal at all, and I know what he meant and I know why he said it. I wasn’t responding to any of his sexual innuendos or giving him any room to jump in. The truth is, I’m just not interested in that right now. I want friendships. REAL friendships. I don’t want someone to look at me and “like” me… they don’t like me.. they like what they see.. they don’t even know me. I want someone to want to take their time with me and get to know me and value my existence in their life, have conversation that isn’t just geared towards getting me in bed. I won’t do it.

When you spend half your life believing that your worth really comes down to how you make someone feel in bed, you get a twisted sense of reality. You start jumping in feet first showing someone what you have to offer and then end up feeling hurt and frustrated when time has gone by and all you want to do is feel cared about and loved, genuinely, but that person doesn’t care or know how to give you that because they already got “the best of you”… but did they really?

I’m about to be 32. I don’t have time to waste anymore on hoping the person I’m with will treat me right or love me like I deserve – which means I also don’t have time to just fuck around, literally. I get too emotionally connected to people and ideas… that’s also something I’m working on. I don’t want to waste 4+ years of my life. Honestly, if I had to weigh the options, I’d rather be single, childless, debt free and safe than end up in another relationship where it’s nothing but chaos and issues & especially not with a child in that environment.

What are the chances of meeting someone who has also been working on themselves, is financially secure, dependable, has no kids, isn’t married and who just wants to love someone and start a family and work towards goals together?! I’m not going to put a probability on that.. I’ll just keep talking to God and do my part.

♣

Taking physics as an over-thinker has just added a whole new level to my entire being. Seriously. I learned about absolute zero… which is just a theory… but it’s where all motion in a molecule comes to a complete stop. Do you know what that means? To me anyway… that means that what I know as God, would also come to a complete stop.

So I asked one of my friends, a microbiologist, but also a man of God, his thoughts on this. I love these kinds of conversations, they really get my mind working, and I appreciate these types of experiences. My thoughts are that if energy can neither be created nor destroyed… THINK about that… that 1. all the energy that EVER will be, already exists. Every single molecule and atom. The energy isn’t stopping, it’s just binding and ripping apart and creating new and different elements and things over and over again. I got into a whole theory of black holes and toroids and recycling each and every atom/ energy. His response was uplifting and completely not even in the realm of science, which was a little surprising! “God is infallible. It’s not just part of some dogma. It’s the Truth. So He says he knows the ending before the beginning Alpha and Omega So He already knows that humans will never figure out anything to break it. You don’t plan and make the Universe and all the laws that is abides and all the life and energy and matter in it, and fuck up and allow one of your creations to break it.” And that was a little click in my mind that made sense.

People often get mad at scientists for “playing God”.. but isn’t what we’re here to do is to play around in God’s world?! Test things out, see how things work!? Attempt to destroy things and watch them come back to life!? When I was a kid, I THRIVED in situations where I was able to create and test and explore. That’s our nature! Because we are only temporary here, our energy and existence here is only for a moment in time… and then we are recycled. Everything I am learning in physics just adds to these ideas I’ve had about life for so long. I wish I could put into words the way I see what’s going on here. I get close, but there are some ideas, some visions, some feelings that just don’t have the right terminology to convey.

The he sent me a video called “The entire time lapse of the universe until the end of time”. Let me tell you… if I was high, I would have cried. My. Mind. Was. EXPLODING. The sheer amount of time predicted before every single molecule dies out of energy.. is a number that I can’t even fathom, but I know it’s not relative to anything I’ve ever known. I don’t like to think of existence dying out completely. It really just makes EVERYTHING seem so pointless, honestly, because “nothing is forever”. And even though I know that, and it makes logical sense… I still have an idea of how it should be.

Anyway… so what that also means is infinity isn’t real. How can it be? IF scientists can predict the amount of “time” until the last atom dies… then there’s an end point. I just don’t see it happening. Sure, every single scenario, every type of anything ever at any time and every time can be created, experienced, seen, heard, blah blah… and then what?? It’s just done. Like… that’s it folks. Nothing left to see here. It was a wild ride.

Let’s back track a little, but still continue down the rabbit hole a bit… how many people have been alive just on this planet? Since its creation? Google says 107 billion. That seems like nothing. BUT… how many lives have YOU lived on this Earth? Ummmm.. only one that I’m aware of (thank GOD, could you imagine remembering your past lives? How depressing). Anyway.. just one life… realistically more prior to this one, unless you’re a fresh soul with a LOT of learning to do. Now… what if you had to live EVERY single persons’ life? 107 billion lives to live on just this planet? Experience all their hardships and survival and amazing moments in time!? THEN…. what if you had to live just your life that you have now.. but in all the possible ways that you could imagine you’d want to experience life as yourself? Ideally, I’d like to have had my brother as a part of my life for the last how ever many years… in another life time as me, I’d have that. Then in another billion life times I’d live through ALL the other scenarios I’ve ever imagined  as me…. until I’m out of possibilities. Then I’d switch roles with my brother. Live all his lives. Switch with my Mom, my Dad, my dog, my friends, my ex boyfriends, my ex wife, my teachers, my own children (if I ever have any)…. the list is endless…..or is it!? The video I watched where everything ends, predicts roughly:

8 thousand trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years.

“The universe will be permanent and unchanging.”

Anyway. Physics n shit.

It’s not so bad coming home to just myself. I think I’ve gotten over the hump of disappointment and sadness in that regard. I’ve been keeping myself busy, mostly with school and cleaning. Every now and again I will catch myself falling into a funk where I actually wonder if certain moments with people even existed. I won’t dwell on it, but I miss the friendlier parts of my past relationships… just having those people to laugh with or share my day with.. but I understand that I am where I am now for a reason, and I’m ok with that.

Being alone has given me time to really envision the type of person I want to see myself with, and for my whole life up until this point, I never really had a standard, honestly. I just gravitated towards people who I knew would accept me for me at the time. Let’s be honest, I’ve been strange and weird my entire life, I’ve never known how to fit in, I never had a whole lot of self identity… I just kind of tried to figure it out along the way. I look back at pictures of myself and I cringe so hard because I look so completely lost and unsure of myself and who I wanted to be. Now I feel like I actually have all the opportunity in the world to develop myself, and I know it’s no better time than now.

I’ve been going back and forth in my mind on a few things that actually meant so much to me in prior years. One main thing is being a mother. I’m not sad over the idea that I might never have children… in fact, the more I have time to piece things together, I’m actually scared shit-less to even imagine bringing a human into this world. And it’s not even about the state of the world right now, it’s more so that I know I would just want to give that little human the absolute best life possible, and with the way I get depressed or stressed out, I don’t want a child to have to deal with that. I witnessed so incredibly much of that growing up and maybe the way I break the cycle is by being the last piece of that cycle.

The other thing that I’ve gotten used to the idea of is not ever really finding that ideal life partner to share my days and journey with. Hopefully this doesn’t sound morbid, but it’s just where I am right now in life. I am actually very uncomfortable with the idea of dating. I’ve had a few chances and I don’t know if it’s my confidence being low, or the fact that I just don’t want to get involved with people and risk actually being attracted to them and end up with it not working out. Clearly I know that’s how it goes, that’s the name of the game, but honestly, I just would rather not. I don’t necessarily know if I’m “healing” or if I’m just kind of living and doing whatever… but I definitely don’t want to take 25 steps back. I’m not attracted to anybody at this point, and I guess that’s actually ok.

What I HAVE been doing, is really thinking about what that person would look like to me though. That person that could potentially be my forever human, journey buddy. I’ve just been imagining how this person would treat me and really letting that feeling sit in my heart, almost as if I already have that person here. I guess in some way I’m being that person for myself, which I think is what a lot of people describe as “loving yourself” before you can love someone else. I’ve been learning how to be more patient with myself and in those moments where I’m sad and wish someone was here, or I’m happy and wish I was laughing with someone other than myself, or wishing I could talk about my day, I am doing that with myself (maybe that’s crazy, but that’s all I’ve got for now).. and I think it’s buffering out the rough edged and dropping the habits I’ve picked up through years of toxic relationships. So, since I’ve been being that person for myself… I really think it’s made me realize that I don’t actually need anyone around in my life, especially if they’re not going to treat me better than I treat myself. A- fucking- men.

With that being said, I feel like I’m shedding even more deep seeded layers. Especially in the area of my oldest gripe, missing my brother. It’s been an extremely long time, and I have a tendency to make up a fairy tail world in my head of how great it would be to have in around in my life. But let’s be honest, there is so much to hash out between us that I’m not going to sweat him anymore. He is where he is in life right now because that’s where he chooses to stay and all the power in my little beating heart isn’t going to pull him out of those circumstances. So, brother, come find me when you’re ready to come around. Unlike a lot of other people in my life who I can easily cut out, you’re not that simple because you’re my brother and you’re going to always be my brother, my twin. But, just like all the others, you’re not going to take my presence for grated anymore and I won’t allow you to infiltrate my heart and mind with sadness. I love you though.

If you grow up in a household where chaos is the norm or lack of communication is common or STRESS is an everyday thing, you start thinking that that’s how life with always be, but it’s not. Not at all. I love being able to chose if something can fit into my life or not. It’s the most hands-on approach to my own happiness that I’ve ever been a part of.

In this moment, I am so genuinely happy and grateful. I can’t believe I’ve ended up here in my most ideal circumstances. My heart is exploding with love for life and all I can do is sit back and allow it to engulf me. This is what I deserve to feel. From nothing or nobody other than life itself. What a beautiful creation.

It feels like I’m meeting myself for the first time, and I couldn’t think of a better partner in crime to continue this journey with. I’m grateful for this moment and the moments that have led me here.. but I’m also so intensely grateful for what’s coming. I finally feel like I’m on the right path, and it’s indescribable, yet it’s still something worth writing home about.

As I’m driving home with my heart bursting with light beams, the sun is setting and peeking below the clouds, which have been overcast for the entire day. God created all of this of pure love, and I get to be a part of it. By the time I reach my destination, the bright orange-red sun is casting a sunset that would put Bob Ross to shame. I had to take the time to share this so I can remind myself that moments like this DO exist, I just have to be here for them. ❤️

Before I joined the Navy in 2015, I met a guy at the recruiter’s office when we all had to meet for muster purposes. His name was Eddie. I was about to leave and go home after everything had concluded, and he walked up to me, introduced himself, and asked if he could give me his phone number and if I’d like to go to the gym with him. I said yes, and we started going to the gym almost every day after that. He was 6’2 or 6’3, and had the most heartwarming smile I had EVER seen. He was such a sweet guy. He even had a license and car.. and that was definitely a big plus since I was usually the one picking people up and driving them around.

We ended up talking a lot before we shipped out to bootcamp, and what struck me the most about Eddie was how much of a kind heart a soul he had. He was the most polite man I had ever met. He shook my Dad’s hand when they met for the first time, he wore a belt, knew how to carry on a conversation… he was definitely an old soul and wise beyond his years. In fact, he was quite a bit younger than me, by 6 years. He told me of something that happened to him when he was younger that broke my heart for him, but also explained why he was so gentle and caring and genuinely protective. We were never dating, but he treated me like I mattered, and he never wanted to see me unhappy or hurt. I thoroughly enjoyed what we had as friends.

He left two weeks after I did, and I would look for him in the hallways, while we were marching and during chow, but I never saw him. During the third or fourth week of bootcamp I got called into the office and was told that Eddie had stood up during the moment of truth and told them about a sexual assault that happened between a navy personnel and myself. I was dumbfounded, and pissed. Because, even though it was true, I did NOT want anything keeping me from making it into the Navy or holding me back so early on. I decided not to file a report even though my RDC’s were really angry about letting the person get away with their actions. That person ended up making chief and retiring a couple years later.

Anyway, it was a week before graduating bootcamp, and I was walking down the p-way to the mail room when I saw a line of males against the wall. EDDIE was standing there and I got the biggest smile on my face and gave him a hug (even though that was DEFINITELY not going to fly if someone walked out and saw that). I almost cried when I saw him again, I was proud to see that he made it through and I was happy that he got to see my smile that could hopefully keep him in good spirits until he also graduated.

When he finally graduated, we talked on the phone for a while. He went to Georgia for nuke school and I was in Pensacola. Conversations slowly started to die down and come to a screeching halt after he met his girlfriend (now wife and mother of his child) who decided that Eddie and I could no longer be friends or keep in contact. She blocked me from his social media and from being able to text or call him. I know this because Eddie was and is still friends with my Dad on FB… I didn’t even know this until my Dad asked me if I saw that Eddie was going to be a Dad. I just assumed he cut me off.

I think it’s shitty that people who mean even the littlest of something to you, can be cut off so quickly by insecure partners. It’s happened to me in other friendships as well.. and I really can’t tell if they were actually “friends” anyway if that’s how easily they can drop off the face of the Earth. I can respect boundaries and I would want others to do the same for me when I’m in a relationship. I think about Eddie from time to time and I hope he’s doing well and is happy. I know he’s an amazing father and probably an awesome husband. She’s a lucky girl and hopefully she is treating him how he deserves to be treated.