A Love Story

You must love yourself before you can love another. The most repeated, rehearsed, rhetoric adage of love, of relationships, of breakups, of all time. I cannot tell you how many times someone has shot this one at me and I rolled my eyes and thought, "That really helped dickbag." I cannot tell you how many times I sat up late wondering, hoping, willing things to end up differently than they did, wondering how I got to that place, that place of confusion, loss, and disappointment. I heal, we all heal in strange, less than chronological ways, but often, things never really make a lot of sense. We figure things out little by little, one day something catalyzes an epiphany in our mind, days, months, years after the healing, and we finally have understanding, closure.

For a long time, I didn't understand the love yourself adage. I have loved several people who did not love themselves, friends and boyfriends and in between. I know what its like to bash your head off of a wall because someone will not look at themselves in the mirror and see what I see. I know what its like to be told that you are too good for someone to the point where you start to feel as though being 'too good' is a bad thing. I know what its like to think, "Maybe if I just give you a little more, love you even more unconditionally, it will help you love yourself, to find the beauty in yourself." Because that's what I do, when I love people, I love unconditionally, I love all of the dirty, broken, hurting parts of you, I love you inside out, right side up, to the moon and back, because that's what you deserve, that's what we all deserve. Out of these people, these unconditionals, very few of them have loved me back in this way, not because they didn't  love me just as much but because they didn't know how to love me the way I loved them. I realize in retrospect that love looks differently to all of us, we all associate different actions with the feeling, and that's perfectly okay, but we need to see love embodied in a way that we understand or else we feel neglect, bitterness, fear, longing. I need love expressed through action, through movement, through verbalized commitments, through little insignificant statements, through consideration and space. I need love in a way that I know even if we are fighting I can call you at 3 AM and you will pick me up, no questions asked. I need love in a way that I don't have to wonder constantly, I need a little bit of security from people. I need this kind of love because this is how I love, in big, unconditional go all out for you ways,  not in an every day, obnoxious way but when you need it, or when you have forgotten how special you are.

 For a long time, I thought that the "Love yourself" adage applied to me in that I loved people who didn't love themselves, and that that was my plight. This past weekend, I spent at a leadership retreat, learning all about vulnerability and dealing with conflict. I learned so much that I will carry with me forever, but largely applied it to my relationships with others rather than with myself. But last night, laying on my yoga mat in savasana, my instructor said this: 

"Love yourself enough to stop worrying. Love yourself more than you ever have. Love yourself enough to give yourself peace."

I love myself, in a hard, judging, mothers-who-give-their-daughters-self-esteem-issues way. I love myself in a way that makes people go to therapy. I love myself in a way that I take care of myself and get my shit done but do not actually stop to say, "Hey Clo, where are we at today?" I love myself in that I care about my future and my security and plans; unfortunately, this often leads to me making myself push writing to the side because 'that's not a real job.' I do not let myself break my strict rules. I run at least five miles a day, and granted, I do love to run, but I started because of a mental expectation of what my body should look like. I do not do a lot of things for me, I do a lot of things, for you and for you and for you. I could be on my way to yoga or Dunkin Donuts or the library and if you call and say, "Hey Clo, wanna go run a marathon with me," I'll be there, laced up, no questions asked. I am a Yes person to my people, but I'm not a Yes person to myself. I rarely look in the mirror and say, "You're beautiful." I rarely pat myself on the back and say, "I'm so proud of you." Not because I don't think I am a good, accomplished, talented human being, but because I always have my eyes set on the next goal. 

I realized that though I do love myself, I do not love myself in the way that I need to be loved. The reason I love the idea of love so much is that I am constantly awaiting a person who will love me in the way I love them. However, I do not love myself how I love other people and therefore, how can I ask other people to love me how I love them? (Mindfuckery) From now on, from here on out, I vow to love myself how I need, how I deserve.

I will not push yoga or writing or God to the side to appease anyone, even myself, they fill up my heart and my heart should be filled. I will stop criticizing myself and love the body that I was given and continue to do good things for it, not out of self-hate but self-love. I will allow myself to be vulnerable, to be scared and exposed and naked, because it helps other people connect to you, it helps other people see your heart; and if I fall, fail, or fuck things up, I know that God and I will catch myself. I will trust, in a big way, more than I ever have, with everything, that though everything does not have reason or justice, everything is part of God's plan for my life. I will look in the mirror and know that, yes, you are kind and compassionate and giving and soft even though you have been hurt, the world has not hardened you; this does not make you weak, this makes you strong. I will stop running from my truth, shoving it in corners and drawers, and embrace it: I am a writer, I am good at other things, I could do other things with my life, but I am a writer, that is my passion, my gift, and my purpose. I will love myself the way God loves me, the way my parents love me, the way my best friends love me, like I am a treasure, unconditionally. I will say yes to me, even if it means saying no to someone else.

So they say, "You must love yourself before you can love another." I think we should say, "Love yourself how you want to be loved, how you deserve to be loved, and you will never go without." <3 p="">

The Girl I Mean to Be

I remember taking voice lessons years ago and singing a song called, "The Girl I Mean to Be." At the time I thought it was whiny and annoying and just wanted to sing, "A Part of Your World." But, lately, I've been thinking about The Girl I Mean to Be and the one I actually am...

She is patient, so patient. Unbelievably patient. She relaxs, sits quietly as the world falls to chaos on all sides of her. She doesn't believe in waiting or anticipating, she goes about her life knowing that good things come in time. She doesn't snap on her brother for trying to give her sensible advice, even if he is only twelve.

She makes good decisions. She doesn't justify stupid actions with completely irrelevant accomplishments. She says no and when and stop and stay and go away at all of the appropriate times. She says sorry, she is excellent at saying sorry. She, hypothetically speaking, never swims in the wrong pool at the wrong time or drinks too much liquor or tells God to not look at her right now.

She is smart, but not like me. She is smart because of constantly planning ahead and prioritizing and making lists and knowing what is coming next. She is not the champion of the last minute, she is not a procrastinator. She fucking loves lists.

She is sane. She knows how to do sensible things like breathe in and out and not flip the fuck out. She makes careful calculated decisions and does not fly by the seat of her soffe shorts. She has never screamed at someone in a parking lot or a driveway or a moving vehicle or thrown shoes or fists (again, completely hypothetical) She likes to talk things out. She likes to know the opinions of others and how they are interpreting the situation. Power and control are not things she thinks about. She isn't a crazy bitch, but hey...

She is never cold and never distant. She is warm to everyone she meets and, yet, she doesn't make bad judgement calls. She knows when someone is no good and she will recognize it immediately. She can read people, she doesn't trust the bad people & that allows her to trust the good people.

She is faithful. In God. In a truly remarkable way. She doesn't question his will or find herself angry with him when things don't go the way she predicted or hoped or expected. She leans on him beyond reason or sensibility or logic; she doesn't run away from him when she's damaged or bruised or full of darkness. She brings her pain and her mistakes to him and she lets him heal her. She trusts in him, always.

The Girl I Mean to Be would never tell you these things about herself though, she is too modest. She is just too...perfect. She is perfect, and that is why the Girl I Mean to Be isn't and will never be me.

The Girl I Mean to Be would never run a ridiculous amount of miles because she doesn't want to deal with her problems or because thats how she deals with her problems. Therefore, I can definitely outrun The Girl I Mean to Be. Also, because of this nonsense, she definitely doesn't have calluses all over her feet, some might even call her feet pretty.

The Girl I Mean to Be would never say fuck as much as I say fuck. She is a "lady" and "ladies don't cuss." I am not a fucking lady, so that clears that up.

The Girl I Mean to Be would never fall for the wrong guy, the bad guy, the asshole, I don't know, whatever you want to call him. But I would and did and am a better woman because of it. She may be smarter but I'm tougher.

The Girl I Mean to Be wouldn't talk to God the way I talk to him. She wouldn't fight with him or cry to him or be stubborn and indecisive and unbearable. But he made me this way and that's why I get to talk to him the way we do. She is perfect, so...

The Girl I Mean to Be never wanders home at the wee hours, she never chips her manicures, she doesn't fuck shit up and if she does, she messes things up. She is pure of heart & mind & soul & body; but she just isn't me. I could stand to learn a lot from her & I plan to, every day for the rest of my life. And the Girl I Mean to Be will evolve, she'll grow up with me and she'll get new ideas and new plans and love new things and start new chapters. But we will always run parallel, never coinciding. She'll probably have a husband and two kids and a white picket fence but she won't be epic.

I'm going to be epic, and not in the Girl I Mean to Be way, in the Girl I'm Gonna Be way.

2/28/13

Dear Papa,

I wrote you a letter last year, on the one year anniversary of the day you died. I wrote about what was going on in my life and why I hadn't had all that much to say to you lately, I wrote about how hopeful and excited I was to start college and how I wanted be a doctor just like we would always play. Things change though, we realize things about ourselves and other people and we evolve into new versions of old memories.

Today, I'm writing you a letter and I don't have a lot in common with that girl who wrote you a letter a year ago. I have a lot more in common with the girl who didn't eat anything and wrote everyone out of her life the day you died two years ago; funny, the more things change, the more they stay the same. It's funny because it's not, and it's okay because that's just how things go sometimes. I used to love February, it used to be my favorite, but now I am always excited for it to be over. I used to love a lot of things that I don't love anymore and I used to think a lot of things I don't think anymore; but that's just what happens when we grow up, right? I wrote to you last year as a hopeful little girl, and I write to you today as a woman, hopeful but a little bit heavy hearted. And why the hell did I want to be a doctor?

I remember you though, so vividly, especially today. You were never grown up and you were never bitter and you were never jaded, not to me at least. You yelled and you got angry and you hated when we jumped over the couch and into the playroom but you were the brightest light in the darkest place. We have a lot more in common now than we did when I was six, we would be even better friends now.

I like whiskey, a lot, just like you did. I like sad, sappy movies, a lot, just like you did. I like cashews, probably more than even you did. I like telling people I love them, a lot, just like you did. I like swearing, a whole fuck of a lot, just like you did. I am too emotional and too volatile and too much of everything, but unlike you, I can keep it all locked up inside. You probably lived so long because you were free of all vaulted emotion; if this is the case, I need to start yelling more.

Is it okay to say that I hate Nanny's new house because I can't walk into the playroom and sit where you sat and see your ghost in every mirror and in every rocking chair? It still smells like you somehow, though. Is it okay to say that there are very few people on this earth that I like half as much as I like you? Is it okay to say I'm a little bit of a mess? I am and I'm saying it and I'm justifying saying it because I have great grades, I'm allowed to be a mess as long as school is great; patented Chloe life philosophy.

I miss your romanticism and your belief in people and how absurdly affectionate you could be. I miss hearing you sing my name, no one else sings the Clobird the Snowbird song, and I miss getting screamed at because I wouldn't talk to Uncle Rich on the phone. I would gladly talk to him now, whenever you wanted me to, he is even more brilliant and even more screwed up than I. I miss the way you looked at Mama and the way you talked about her and I miss you being cute to Nanny and her squawking back at you. You are all of my favorite embodiments of true love, you are all of the reasons I continue to believe magic things exist.

So it has been two years and you're still gone and we're all still here.
You're gone and we all still miss you in strange, painful ways.
You're gone and I'm just trying to build a life that makes sense, I know I can. I know you'll help.
You're gone and we're here, so keep taking care of us.

I love you to pieces Papa,

Clobird

19 is a weird number

Today I turned 19. I thought about writing about how this is a fresh start, a new era, the beginning of adult Chloe and the end of baby Chloe. I thought about reminiscing on nineteen lost friends, nineteen great accomplishments, nineteen ridiculous mistakes. I thought about laying out a life plan, a list of goals to achieve in the next 365 days, a blueprint of my ultimate nineteenth year. Sometimes I worry I talk too much about the past & the present & not enough about the future, sometimes I worry that if I don't know where I am going, I won't like where I end up. Sometimes I worry so much that I feel it all swelling up inside of me like a balloon trying to escape for the moon. Instead of trying to define this blog post or explain it or justify it, I'm just going to say nineteen things on the day I turn nineteen. Not for you, for me. I hope, though, that whether you are a nineteen year old woman or a forty three year old man, at least one of these 19 things speaks to you.

1. Can you say it out loud? In front of an entire room of people, people you know, people you don't, your family, strangers, people who fascinate you, people who loathe you. Could you say it to them? The truth, the absolute truth of your life, the secret you've been keeping, the black hole you've been protecting. Could you stand on a podium, in front of a microphone, and bare your soul? Does it make you a bad person if you couldn't? I want to live in such a way that I can stand on the stage, in the spotlight, burning, sweating, scared shitless, and say it, no holds barred, and be proud of my truth.

2. "Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." -Friedrich Nietzache 

3. Sometimes I think to myself, this situation is so crazy and beyond bizarro that no one else could ever possibly sympathize with this insanity. Then I tell someone and they laugh and I realize we are all completely broken & bruised & this is why we continue to fall in love with each other.

4. If the cops come, don't think about it, RUN.

5. Don't beat yourself up. You are the only friend that will be by your side, every day, every moment for your entire life. Do not abandon yourself ever, be your best friend, be the person you can count on no matter what.

6. Thinking about things usually just messes them up. Hearts are for doing, leave the thinking to the amateurs.

7. To me, I Love You is infinite. We may not be close anymore, we may not even speak, but if I once opened my heart to you, I share with you that piece of me forever. I Love You does not have an ending, everything else in life is allowed to have an ending but not I Love You. Not to me.

8. Someone is always gonna be smarter, prettier, more this, more that, better. But someone will never be you. That's where you win.

9. "You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don't make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people cannot take their eyes off of you." -Maya Angelou 

10. One day, go to the Trumbull County Fair in Bazetta, Ohio and get a freshly milked milkshake from one of the fair cows. I'm not even being an ass, it will change your life. Coming from a vegan. P.S. Do not make eye contact with anyone.

11. My goal in life is to form a collection of ridiculous stories to tell my teenage children one day. Stories that make them feel better about whatever god awful nonsense they've gotten tangled up in. 

12. I also aspire to be the Tinker Bell that zip lines across Magic Kingdom every night during the fireworks.

13. Don't make promises you can't keep. Don't make wishes you don't want to come true. Don't stay up too late thinking about something you cannot change. Don't worry about what you're "supposed" to do. Don't worry about screwing up. When you want to cry, just cry, it doesn't make you stronger to hold back tears, it just makes you look like you are constipated. Do send it all up to God, it is His plan, after all. Do protect your eyelashes, eyelashes are important, they protect your eyes. Someone has got to protect your eyelashes. 

14. Cats have magical healing powers. 

15. The phrase, "If it hurts, its working," is absolutely absurd to me. SOMETHING IS PROBABLY VERY WRONG IF IT IS HURTING YOU.

16. I believe in fairy tales. I believe in happy endings. I believe that there is a magical element to the world we live in. On good days, I believe in mermaids. I have let go of a lot of pieces of myself, but, I refuse to let go of the little girl who believes in things that are impossible. 

17. I haven't broken a bone yet. I'm knocking on wood but also kind of wondering what if feels like, because I'm deranged.

18. http://howdoiputthisgently.tumblr.com/post/34172770668

19. So I'm 19 now, and this blog effectively depicts just how wayward I am. Come, let's commence in our wandering.

Reasons, Seasons, & Lifetimes

Since I was a tiny girl my mom has told me, "People come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime." And since I was a tiny girl, this has rung true in every relationship I've ever had. I've had temporary friendships that lead me to stronger, permanent friendships. Reasons. I've had wild, reckless relationships during the hot, sunkissed summer months that float off like fallen leaves come autumn. Seasons. And in a couple, miraculous instances, I've had friendships that just stick, no matter where we are or where we go or how long we go without talking, they will always be counted on the hand of trust. Lifetimes. The difficulty with this concept though is that its something that is always realized in retrospect.

I have never met a person and instantly known, You are a lifetime. I have never gotten all dressed up in a frilly outfit to go to a freaking street fair and thought, This kid won't even a blip on your radar come October. A lifetime & a season are both very clear, distinct measurements of time though. Once you figure it out, you know how long these people stay and you know what you can expect from them. Seasons manifest themselves as fond memories that drift into your heart from time to time while lifetimes grow to become your heart over the years. The one I struggle the most with, though, are the reasons. Reasons do not have a set, measured time to be in your life. I hear reason and my heart cringes. My reasons have mostly taught me painful things about the world, but things that have made me stronger. Most of my reasons have popped up into my life multiple times; usually when I needed to relearn their lesson. The reasons are not people I look back on and smile and giggle, they are people who altered me, changed my stuffing, ripped me apart, taught me what I'm capable of, and showed me what it means to really, insanely, sacrificially love someone.

Usually reasons are people that we expect to be lifetimes, people that consume our hearts and keep our secrets and wipe away our tears. Our best friends, our first loves, people we bring home to our families, who become parts of our families, people that we can't imagine the world without. And then one day something happens to make us realize that they are in our lives for a REASON not a LIFETIME. We realize reasons in hard ways. Believe it or not, the person you trusted everything with, is perfectly capable of hurting you. Believe it or not, your expectation of people is often much higher than their capacity. Believe it or not, things fall apart, always, recklessly, without any immediate explanation, and we are left with fragments of a heart, a friendship, a love, a memory, a plan that was once so whole and pure.

And then one day, or month, or year, or decade down the road, you have an epiphany. Someone tells you a story about their friend who is in a dark place, and you look at them and nod knowingly and tell them exactly how to help her, because you've been there, more times than you can count. You're playing catch and someone notices you can throw a spiral, and you just laugh and think, "So that's what I got out of that." You can curl hair a certain way, you know proper party etiquette, you know that if a guy is worth your time, he'll always text you first. You know how to roll a joint even though you've never been high and you can recognize just about any rap artist's voice within 5 seconds of a song. These might not be things that your reasons taught you, but they are some of the more trivial things that my reasons taught me. Things that will never fade from my repertoire but may always come with a little tug at my heart strings.

There are big lessons too. Like how to drive a pickup truck, how to kiss, what is okay to say to a woman & what is not, and who to call when you're too drunk to drive or walk. And there are bigger lessons than that. Like the differences between love and obsession and lust, to not get so drunk that you cannot walk, the importance of looking ahead, recognizing where you are, and appreciating where you have been, and the significance of telling people how much they mean to you, before it is too late. And then there is the biggest of them all.

It is so cliche, but so true to the human condition. Life goes on; even when you cannot fathom your next step, even when you have spent every day living one way and will have to wake up tomorrow living a different way, even when you are angry to your very core, and even when the betrayal or hurt or disappointment is overwhelming. This is what reason people teach us: how strong we are, how capable we are, and how much you will go through in this brief, beautiful experience that only makes you better in the end. I love my reasons, each and every one, even the ones who I will never speak to again, even the ones who taught me lessons that left scars, even the ones who come with a fitting, "What the fuck Chloe?", and even the ones who I don't even know are reasons yet. I am who I am today because of Reasons, Seasons, and Lifetimes, there will be so many more and I welcome them with open arms.

Whether you are here to get a tan, here to teach me something, or here to stay, welcome. We could hurt each other, we could get coffee, we could have a ridiculously hilarious time together, we could never interact again after this moment, we could do everything & nothing. Just know that we are constantly leaving our marks all over each others' hearts & I'm glad to have all of your lovely fingerprints.

P.S. Maybe I just wrote this blog so that I would know the true spelling of the word repertoire. Because now I do. Reason.

Signs

I'm always asking God for signs, real world assurances of my next step in life. I cannot move past a situation or move forward to a new situation until I've gotten a true, verifiable--by my mother--sign. Yet, often times, I wonder if the signs I find are merely signs I want myself to see rather than express shipped from heaven. I can't soundly express how many times I have confused coincidence with celestial intervention, more than I can name without embarrassing myself. Pinterest quotes don't count as signs. Songs on the radio? Not so much. Running into someone you'd almost forgotten when you're happy & doing well, that's just the devil. SOMEONE TEXTING YOU AT 2 AM IS NOT A SIGN, it's just disrespectful, don't do that. God's signs are obvious, just not in the way we have been programmed to expect. They probably won't come hurdling into your inbox when you're in a valley of despair, God's a lot bigger than text messages. Signs probably won't look shiny & pretty & just how you always imagined, they're probably going to tell you a bigger, darker, grittier truth, one you couldn't come to grips with in your own mind.

So I ask God for signs almost every day, because I'm dramatic and cryptic like that, and I always get them, whether I see them or not, though, is another situation entirely. Two nights ago, I had the worst dream of my life, and yet, I woke up and had no idea what it meant. I have had horrible dreams in the past and forgotten them within hours, yet this dream stuck with me, like it was burned into my brain for some significant reason. It was the most symbolic, meaningful message I'd ever gotten through a dream, or at least that I could comprehend.

Rape is probably the scariest thing I can imagine, my body and my control are two of my most important belongings that are mine and only mine. I do not ever get my self into situations where I feel these things can be compromised. Yet, in the past, I have let other things be compromised, my independence, my virtue, my friendships, all because I wanted to make someone else happy. I lost a lot of the pieces that made me the person I had once been and in the process of rebuilding her, I found that though I was not ruined, a part of me was very much damaged in a dark way that I couldn't understand. I was bitter, reserved, cold, distant towards men, not because of who they were, but because of who they could be.

My friend told me a story, just the other day, about a girl who had been raped and the way she acted in the aftermath. How she didn't like to be left alone, anywhere at anytime, how fragile and fearful she could be, how she shook and crumbled. My heart broke listening to this girl's story, and resonated at the same time. I remembered my dream and how raw it left my mind, I couldn't imagine how she felt in the aftermath of that real experience, I wanted to talk to her, to soothe her, yet I knew my words wouldn't change the way she felt inside. I hope & pray that God cradled her, took her under his wing and healed wounds that other hands would only damage.

In the aftermath of a horrible experience, you have to rebuild yourself and you have to forgive. Sometimes forgiveness seems beyond all reason and comprehension, and yet, you still have to forgive, or else your life will never go on. You pray and you cry and you struggle and you grow and then you feel animosity, bitterness, and hatred and it is as if you never changed at all. I have been the girl in the relationship that metaphorically rapes your life and I have been the girl that goes back to that relationship more times than she cares to admit. I have been bitter and hateful and lost sight of all sensibility, and yet, here I am. I forgive today and I will forgive every day until it is no longer an apology that I need to accept. God crept into my mind and explained it to me, he explained the truth, the innocence, and the finality of the situation. God said, "Let it go, I have you now."

Sometimes signs are quiet, soft, whispered in the middle of a loud, crowded party. Sometimes a sign slaps us in the face, and yet, because of our deceitful hearts, we choose to turn our heads from the truth. Sometimes, every once in a while, a sign is so clear, so pure, so right, that we have no other choice but to move forward with that sign on our horizon or, if need be, that sign in our rearview mirror.

Tough

Thinking of New Year's resolutions has been exceedingly hard for me this year. For the most part, I take care of myself in all of the typical New Year's resolution departments. I prayed that God would give me a sign of what I needed to fix, what I needed to change, what I needed to improve upon, and it felt like I kept coming up empty handed. The problem with me, though, is that I have a hard time listening to things that I don't want to hear. I'm tough, I've always considered myself tough at least. I don't put up with anyone's disrespect, I don't hang around people who mistreat me minus a few extreme exceptions. As my mother would say, "Don't fuck with Chloe." And in general, people don't.
I started thinking, though, about the rules that my toughness has burdened me with. I don't cry in front of people, I don't fall apart in front of anyone except for my mom and that is only when I'm a complete disaster. Not because I don't ever feel the need to, but because its a sign of weakness to me. I am not generous with my sympathy, even though I have a rough translation of 'be sympathetic' written on the back of my neck, I expect everyone to act like me, so when people fall apart at the hands of love and other drugs, I rarely feel sorry. I rarely text or call anyone first, I rarely exert effort into situations where I could potentially get hurt, I rarely open up about anything, I rarely let myself really experience emotions other than anger. And where has all the toughness got me? Callused, scarred, bottled up with secret hurt, and a laundry list of disappointments that I will never tell anyone about. Toughness is only a mask, a facade, a barrier between me and the innermost good I have.
So I resolve to be softer, to be more open to feelings and experiences that might slap me in the face with disappointment and hurt. I resolve to be kinder and more understanding of the journeys we are all walking in and how beautifully different and similar they can be. I resolve to put myself out there, to let up some on the stubbornness (not completely...just a little.) I resolve to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about my emotions, even if it means putting myself out on a fragile limb.
I'll always be tough because that's just me, but it's time to stop being tough to the point that I sacrifice experiences, relationships, and honesty. It's time to let my heart be open to the goodness in the world again, because believe it or not, there is still some left, and it is waiting to snatch us up, if only we let it.
Still, though, don't fuck with me.