{ 10 / 10 / 17 }

signal

wave across the water for me

let me know

that you'll be waiting ever for me

oh, i've been travelling

waiting for a moment of peace

these stormy weathers

got me thinking of how i want it to be

signal

light a thousand fires on me

give me no doubt

that i'm the one that never has to leave

oh, i've been divided

time and time again you keep the peace

give me shelter

let me be the (wo)man i wanted to be

//

everyone is in the back room taking their lunch and i'm sitting at my desk with a 140-calorie bag of popcorn and saint-saens in my headphones. somehow, even more things have to change.

//

at this stage, that seems like such an unlikely outcome.
but at this stage, any outcome would be as unlikely as the next.
what do you do when you really have no way of predicting an outcome?
you have no choice but to keep walking forward.
to watch the infrastructure of the future come together all around you.

i can't say i like it all that much, but the alternative is to stop moving until something seems certain...and i feel like the only certainty in life is that nothing is certain. ever.

i've had my time not to move.
and i don't want that anymore.

//

feeling many things in this season:
nothing is sure
nothing is forever
i can and should make choices that are healthy for me
^ people may not like how they are affected when i do so
   ^ that is not my problem
it is okay not to know
it is okay to let go
it is okay to say no
it is okay to let my true self show
i am stronger and deeper than anyone really knows
i can change and evolve; i don't have to stay the same
i might not be interesting enough for some people but that doesn't make me uninteresting
i might not be beautiful enough for some people but that doesn't make me ugly
i might be too interesting for some people but that doesn't mean i'm too much
i might be too much for some people but that doesn't make them bad people







//

embracing the new,
the fresh start,
the leaving what was,
the lack of knowing,
the exploration, the putting to rest, the discovery.

{ taking liberties }

i spent the entire weekend alone. i made pancakes, read books in the sun, did hammer curls and sit-ups while watching hours of television. i drank rose at 4pm. i ordered pizza and silenced my phone. i folded shirts, placing them one atop the other, neat slices of cotton.

sometimes i reach out and make the tiniest movements toward social plans. more often than not the text message thread trails off, and i might be the only person in the world who doesn't mind when it does. maybe that's because i know that if i brought my full momentum to the efforts, concrete things would come to pass. somehow i've perfected the art of appearing to try seeing people while remaining profoundly ambivalent as to whether i do or not.

concrete meetings make me restless. as soon as i've arranged them i regret it.
i'm not a misanthrope. i'm beginning to understand that i despise being tied to anything.
i don't fear commitments; i abhor making them.

for so long i thought i needed structure and adherence to something (a schedule, a religion, a program, a plan) or someone (my parents, my friends, a partner). i thought it was in the construct and the connective sinew that i thrived. and because that was how i perceived myself and my needs, so it was. i rarely allowed unprogrammed time or solitude in my life. because to lack a plan or a person for each minute was to be aimless, purposeless, drifting. it was to be formless and unimportant.

it is with relief i am learning that at my core, i'm much wilder than i ever knew. (not wild, per se; compared to truly wild and unstructured individuals i'm probably incredibly uptight.) for the first time in my life, i can sense that my type-A friends view me as foreign: i shy away from plans, i give vague answers to social requests, i regularly dole out "let's see how things go" and "i could probably make that work". a friend told me recently that my comings and goings "seem so mysterious" because when i'm not with her, she has no idea what i do. i believe she said this to cajole me into filling the gaps. (i also believe she said it because my mysterious nature makes her feel insecure about her friendship with me. like, how many other friends do you have? and do you see them more than you see me?) anyone's mistake in trying to manipulate (without malice, sure, but manipulate nonetheless) me in such a manner is that instead of coaxing me to full disclosure or expository confession, it pushes me further into the shadows. reflexively my fists close, holding solitude in my grip, the diamond kernel of my soul spinning faster, smoother, silent.

//

when i was in my mid-twenties i was never alone. i had a boyfriend, i had weekly standing plans with friends, i avoided quiet and rest. my self-worth was tied directly to how busy i was (even at that age i had strong glimmers of self-awareness...from somewhere outside and above my body i observed myself moving so endlessly, and sighed). i created activity and noise to insulate myself. (from what, i'm still figuring.) and lest i completely demonize busy-ness, i think to some extent i was simply being young --- flapping my wings, tirelessly bouncing from corner to corner, face wide open, overly generous with myself and prone to overexertion. my job was easy and light (as easy and light as a mini-career in oncology could be, but still). i did not yet carry the questions and experiences i do now. i had energy left over each day; i spent it all and saved none.

when the boyfriend was no more, things underneath slowed, moving through the cruel gelatin of grief. but on the surface, i only got more frenetic. i was running from the sadness, over-occupying my physical hours and my overwrought faculties. i wanted a drowning that i chose, not the one that threatened to overcome me in my sleep, woke me gasping for air.

all that activity was an effort to buoy myself up. i surrounded myself with an endless ring of people, my human inner tube. i knew i couldn't keep myself afloat on my own. so while in retrospect it all looks ludicrous, like a social circus with a manic ringleader (me), i must bow to the wisdom in those choices, the subconscious knowledge that i couldn't retreat to a cave of pain and heal myself.

//

so it was wisdom that pushed me to dive into community when i was twenty-seven.
and it is wisdom that calls me to stand in my own strength now, at thirty-four.

there are times to take the hands of all who will have you,
to make tearful late-night phone calls that ward off nightmares.
and there are times to clasp your own hands,
to look out the window as dusk gathers and fear no darkness.

{ let it all out now }

i think you know
we waited too long, now i have to go
i don't know why
we break so hard

last night, driving home, both hands gripping the wheel
i thought i don't think i've ever been this sad about anything
(not even being let go and forgotten all those times)
and i felt so helpless and infuriated and silly,
trying to keep the car on the road while i caught my breath,
choking on disappointment and injustice and death.

//

i feel on the verge of snapping lately, everything so sharply and urgently in focus that i can't process it. everything pressing in, needing me, now. i feel squarely in touch with myself --- what i need and want --- and how starkly that compares to what the world is and needs and wants from me. it's liberating and jarring and terrifying, realising i'm at odds with so much. how big a misfit i am. all my life i wanted to fit in: i dreamed of having blonde hair and blue eyes, stick-like limbs, gap jeans, spray-on deodorant, doc martens. how little it all matters now, how i wish i could've understood how profoundly all that is for shit in the end. how much more it mattered that i was hard-working and had deeply private thoughts and loved to read and felt things so strongly even if my body never gave those feelings away. 

i'm sitting here with tears running down my face thinking of all that time and energy wasted wishing i was anything other than what i was. i wish i could go back and tell my younger self to get started learning how to listen to and accept myself instead of trying (and failing) to measure up to the flimsy vanilla standard being perpetually shoved into my face (that i swallowed thirstily, to be fair). it was agonizing not to look like the popular girls or wear the right clothes back then. i've always felt like an ugly duckling, the odd one out, so crudely rendered compared to the much-more-desirable caucasian woman. i think i will always feel that way. and any attention i get i meet warily, since i've only ever been of use to men in their attempts to get to my friends.

the damages that are done,

the damages i facilitated.

the aftermath.

so much to undo all the internal harm.

//

i've almost stopped browsing social media entirely --- i post to it, but i try not to peruse it. doing so tends to water all kinds of ugly seeds in my prickly soul, and i learned this in a devastating way after a breakup. thing is, i'm a bit of a masochist, so sometimes the worse something makes me feel, the more i do it (revisiting an ex's profile with newly-posted photos of his honeymoon? count me in). and although i'm a reasonably disciplined person 93% of the time, the other 7% of the time i'm a first-rate binger. so the easiest thing for me to do is stay off something altogether than randomly allow myself to hop on every once in awhile, only to emerge 2 hours later with absolutely nothing meaningful added to my life, feeling like shit.

that being said, every once in awhile the chutes and ladders of social media lead me to something that does add meaning to my life. i recently stumbled upon audrey rogers. her style and gorgeous images attracted my attention, but her thoughts kept my interest. in particular, the ones shared below:

Time – now that is something to really concern ourselves with. We don’t have an endless amount, we are all going to one day die and yet we still choose to spend entire hours of our existence internally insulting and abusing ourselves. We must be fools.

--- for full blog post, go here

woke up this morning, hating every bone in my body, tugging at clothes that all felt too tight. no matter how lovely we might look to anyone else, we all, as women, tend to prefer we believe we look completely vile. it's so sad, so terribly sad how easy our self confidence is grabbed from us on an almost daily basis. I do everything I can to resist, but still somehow falter sometimes. And so here I am, having a fucking great time in nothing more than a very tight bodice, because it's all part of the fight. Fighting to love yourself - it's incredibly hard, but to not struggle, to not resist, to not fight - well that's for the weak. And we as women are strong. We deserve to find that strength in life - the strength to love our thighs or countless freckles or round stomachs and to proudly flaunt them in any which way we prefer. One day, my body will no longer be walking this earth - I refuse to spend the days I have here internally insulting the skin I live in. Life is just too short for that shit, really, way way way too short.
--- for a beautiful, thought-provoking instagram feed, go here

//

i disappoint people. i can become reclusive. that deeply-feeling soul i've been struggling to manage all my life is sometimes easily bruised. and when it is, i am angry with myself for being so damn sensitive. so i hide. you'd think all this self-awareness would help me recognize when all this is occurring and not withdraw, but that's like saying if a turtle knows it's green, it should be able to stop itself being green. i haven't quite figured out how to fix my tendency to bruise easily and i'm not quite sure it's something i need to fix. i have attachment issues that originate with being given up as an infant and passed through the arms of strangers for the first several months of my life. it's not an excuse, it's my reality. and i'm trying to come to terms with it so i can have constructive relationships. but the reality of life is that people leave. they get married, they move away, they get busy. and we can be far away from the people we sleep next to, the people we value the most, the people we can't and don't want to live without. we can be far away from ourselves, for fuck's sake. being near to things is not easy (not for me). i have lost many along the way who wanted to be nearer, i have hurt them, they have tried very hard and still not gotten close.

i am sorry.
know that i'm struggling with it too. every day.

//

do you ever feel like just being alive means
you could be accused
of having bitten off more
than you could chew?

{ the hard things }

before you begin to read this post, know that a.) it's long, b.) it's very roughly written, and c.) when i found myself at the point where the writing ends, i knew there was so much more to say but i simply couldn't go on. i knew i needed to write some of this out after a conversation i had earlier today, and i almost didn't because i think i knew i'd be starting on something that wouldn't necessarily find a timely (or easy) end. but i started anyway, and found myself having stumbled to a raw and ragged place, unable to go any further. this is actually my favorite kind of writing --- the kind that brings you to a place even you couldn't have known you were going, a place you absolutely needed to go, and couldn't have gotten to without just sitting down and letting the words pour out --- but it's also the most revealing and painful kind of writing, for me. all this to say, my thoughts end somewhat abruptly, sadly, and without a redemptive final paragraph. if you're here, and if you make it to the end, you're a dear enough friend or kind enough soul that you will understand...thank you, really, for being here.

--------------------------------

{ TODAY }
today has been a good day, full and also full of quiet.

i organised a matinée with close friends followed by a meal together which started with small talk about our respective holidays. one of the things that puts me at odds with the typical way most people navigate social situations is that i'm only mildly interested in chronological retellings and factual accounts. i much prefer to know what people were feeling and thinking during events. but i recognise that most people need to warm up to deeper subjects, so i do my best to ask appropriate questions and nod in the right places. i'm probably portraying myself as disinterested and rude, and people who know me superficially very well may think me abrupt and detached. it's a common criticism of INTJs: seemingly aloof. but i promise i'm quite interested in people and care deeply about them --- i'm just not a gushy, bubbly, touchy, readily open person. but don't mistake my disregard for social rituals (another INTJ quality) for a disengaged or uncaring spirit. whether i let you see it or not, i am always engaged, constantly processing, and if anything, i care too much about too many things. i'm usually processing and decompressing from any social encounter for hours, even days, after it's happened.

where were we? oh, today.

i came home and went about a few household tasks in complete silence as the early winter darkness dripped slowly from the sky like paint over the edge of the world. when i was ready, i lit a candle and completed today's yoga practice (a 30-day, new-year-new-start project by a yogi i started following earlier this year). it was good. it felt good.

{ 30 DAYS OF YOGA }
i'm not a person who usually makes concrete resolutions (see explanation for that and much more in last year's first post), and although this year is no exception, i do have a few loose ideas about directions i'd like to continue moving in throughout 2015. more on this later.

i never would've decided in advance to embark on any sort of fitness challenge to begin the new year (way too bandwagonny), but when i saw that this particular instructor who i happen to really enjoy (i've determined that at least 65% of sticking with any fitness session depends on whether you jive with the instructor) was doing a 30-day fresh start sort of thing, i decided to join. she's forgiving enough in her presentation not to scare me off ("this is not a challenge") while maintaining enough structure (videos posted at a certain time each day) to keep me attracted. because i'm that difficult person that can usually figure out what she wants once someone tells her what to do (and yeah, i usually end up doing the opposite of what i'm told i should), this is a hard balance to strike.

anyway, enough over-explaining. as of day two, this is what i've learned:

• i don't breathe properly, or nearly enough. in fact, over the past several (very stressful) months, i've found myself on multiple occasions not to be breathing at all. my chest will tighten, my jaw will begin to ache, and i'll become aware that i've literally been holding my breath. i haven't gotten to the bottom of why. i'm an intense person and sometimes i think i'm just concentrating so hard that i forget to exhale. as simple as it is, it's been helpful to have someone encourage me, multiple times over the course of a forty-minute period, to "find my breath."
• i store more tension in my body than i knew. it's a well-known fact that we all hold tension in our bodies in different ways, and apparently holding my breath and clenching my jaw are two of my favorites. in any case, lifting weights and yoga are helping me to breathe, and therefore manage and release tension in my body.
• awareness is key. even at day two, i can feel where i'm consistently tight and also where i'm already starting to release and lengthen. i think a general un-awareness of my physical self is a side effect of having been brought up in a conservative evangelical environment (and i say that without bitterness --- it just wasn't a subculture where close attention to the physicality of self was cultivated or encouraged). i also think my brain, heart, and soul are over-used (i'd even say abused) in my current job, so i'm often focused on restoring those parts of myself and the body falls by the wayside. if only i'd realised sooner just how integrated we all are --- all parts of us. as i've focused more on the health of my body over the past six months, the health of my mind and heart have grown by leaps and bounds. maybe it's just timing, or the result of years of seeking and trying, but health in these two latter areas is something i've been pursuing for a long time. i don't believe it's pure coincidence that tending to my body has launched my mind and heart to better places.

{ THE HARD THINGS }
i found myself sharing some truth with my friends today about what it means to be adopted. one of them, a woman my mom's age who has four adopted children of her own, received my words with emphatic understanding. the others sat quietly, sometimes with quizzical looks on their faces. i'll be the first to say adoption is incredible. and right on the heels of that, i'll say there are things i wish i knew, things i wish my parents knew. adoption is wonderful but, like any big important things in life, it's not to be taken lightly or perceived one-dimensionally. like anything else, it has its ecstasy and its fucked-upedness (please pardon my profanity and my made-up words, sometimes nothing but those two things will do).

i've referenced this before, but being given up for adoption leaves what i've come to think of as a shadow, or a bruise, on a person for his or her entire life. it's a void whose depth and darkness is unfathomable. i believe we can learn to manage and live with this void, but i don't believe there's anything on earth that can fulfill it.

this causes all kinds of complications for reasons you can probably figure out on your own. in particular, it puts stress on your relationship with your parents as well as any romantic relationship you may have.

the way adoption is in our world, people who hope to adopt are usually saving money and undergoing inspections and agonizing on waitlists for months, maybe years, before a child becomes available. everything about this is one-sided. potential adoptive parents build expansive and elaborate mansions of longing and expectation --- how could they not? they place unbelievable hope and love on the idea of their potential child.

meanwhile, the child is being given up, abandoned, fostered, transferred, maybe neglected, quite possibly loved, in one or more environments, none of which are with its biological mother or family. i don't care how young the child is, this has an irreversible and lasting effect. i was adopted as an infant by loving parents and fostered by a caring woman before that. i still believe that being separated from my biological mother in the first few months of my life bruised me in a fundamental way that has shaped how i understand relationship, attachment, and love to this day. in fact, the younger the child, the more primal i believe the bruise to be: how does an infant process or articulate how unwanted, lonesome, and lost it feels?

so you throw these two opposite things together. you put a tiny child in the echoing palace of a complete stranger's hope and expectation (and if it's a couple, that palace is twice as monstrous and unfamiliar). at this point i'm painting quite a dismal picture of adoption, aren't i? to be clear, i don't resent being adopted. i'm thankful beyond expression for my parents. but now that i'm older and have the tools to process and articulate myself, i think there are unavoidable truths about the whole thing that need to be given voice. it's not to say it shouldn't be done. but i'm a person who believes thought and truth are power. had my parents known any of this, might they have handled me differently? hypotheticals don't really work in reverse. but i believe that applied constructively, they can help us as we look forward.

i can see as i begin to type that i have a lot to say, and i didn't share all of this with my friends earlier today, but i did say this: when you have a child without a family, you'd think that child's response to being wanted and loved would be pure bliss and acceptance. finally! someone to hold and keep and love me! while this might prove true for some, for me it did not and has not. i've never really enjoyed being touched. displays of physical affection often feel smothering and embarrassing. (i think part of it is just how i'm wired; touch doesn't make me feel connected to others. or is this a result of what i've been through? i'm not going into the "nature vs. nurture" argument here.) but the void i spoke of --- wouldn't you think that if love came flooding into that empty space, it would be received with relief and gratitude? finally! give me more! fill me up! but it isn't, and it's something we can all understand: when you're struck somewhere, you protect and shield that bruised and wounded place. cleansing and applying salve to it --- things that are meant to heal --- don't feel good. they cause stinging, searing pain. the thing with physical wounds is that as you see and feel them get better, the constructive and lessening pain of healing encourages you to stick with it. emotional wounds are different, and the painful process of healing, especially as a young child and even a young adult, is not as easily accepted or embraced.

moreover, even if your primal bruise recovers enough to the point where it's not crippling, the scar isn't something you want to expose. it's a shadow, a puckering on a part of your soul so deep that it's beyond words, beyond feeling, beyond sound and silence. and when someone (a parent, a lover) tries to see it, to touch you there --- the instinct is to cover yourself, to gasp, to flee.

now you can see the fuck-upedness i talked about: all you really want, more than you want just about anything, is to be seen and touched and loved. but anyone who tries to get close enough to do any of those things, anyone who says i see you, is shut out and pushed away because it just hurts too much. what i must protect my already-bruised self from above all else is further bruising in that same exact spot. the way of the world is to (in all likelihood) love and be loved by more than one person, but that means allowing attachment (at great cost) and surviving separation (deepening the wound and widening the void), probably multiple times. no wonder falling in love the first time, and eventually being discarded by that person, almost broke me. i wasn't built for it. love of any kind dives straight into that darkness where i can't breathe.

the worst part? even if i could let you close and let you stay and let you say those words...for the rest of my life i don't know if i could ever really believe you.

--------------------------------

{ overexposed/underseen }

the other night i admitted to some close friends (after a few glasses of sangria) that i have a twitter account. they immediately wanted to know what my handle was. "you tweet?" they squealed (sangria) and looked at me incredulously (annoying - is the fact that i tweet really that shocking?). "yes," i rolled my eyes. "and i'm not telling you where to find me. i don't know if i've written anything about any of you."

i've never been anything but honest.

(the best part is, these friends have known me for so long that a.) they weren't offended, and b.) they didn't press me. they know better than that.)

------------

pardon me for hating, but i'm irritated that amal clooney has been determined (by barbara walters, so i know, who cares, but barbara walters has encountered her fair share of humanity over the course of her career, so this isn't completely dismissable) the most fascinating person of 2014. not because i'm jealous (since jealousy would require some delusional notion that i could stack up to amal in even the most remote universe). ..no wait, hear me out. seriously.

it irritates me because hasn't amal possessed all the characteristics that make her "fascinating" for quite a few years prior to being connected to a guy who resides in the twisted caste called "celebrity"?

i have no doubt amal is an intelligent, complex, gorgeous, hard-working and interesting person. but what's finally made her truly interesting to the entire world is the fact that she married george fucking clooney.

i feel the same way about benedict cumberbatch's fiancée. yes, it's amazing that she's fluent in thirteen languages and can sing in french and wore a bikini once on vacation, but she was capable of all these things before being relationally linked to benedict. it's quite special that he's found her beautiful and interesting enough to marry, yes, but that fact alone doesn't make her special --- not any more than the other incredible things about her.

i'm sensitive to the concept of being noticed/claimed by a man making a woman more interesting or appealing. i frown when a newlywed or someone who's been married a long time references his/her wedding day as "the best day of my life" or "the day my life really began." i'm judgmental and i think it's lame and pathetic, for one. for two, i haven't been noticed or claimed as of yet, and i fear that makes me uninteresting and repulsive; furthermore, i may not be claimed in marriage in this life and if that's the magical thing that seals a woman's ability to be truly remarkable (even just in the world's eyes, if not my own), my soul is filled with angst at this injustice. it's not fair that the price of admission to a club that any woman would want to gain entry to (The Fascinating Women's Club, to be exact) is not attainable by any means over which i have control.

(ohhhhh, unless i spend much of my time and money on great skincare, ideal cosmetics for my ethnicity/face shape/coloring, a fantastic wardrobe, a healthy lifestyle, constant physical maintenance in order to keep an acceptably trim figure...let's face it, people, most men won't look to my insides if there isn't something eye-catching about my outsides. it's a fact of life, it's how people are oriented, i'm done raging against that machine. but to play into this game, i have to keep my external game on point and i probably won't ever be convinced otherwise. i've come to the conclusion that it doesn't take any effort to be interesting*, but it takes monumental effort to interest people. especially in today's world, especially on a romantic plane.


* meaning, my endearing/irritating quirks come naturally to me. so does my propensity for learning languages, remembering the smallest details, and desire to detect underlying patterns in everything. my unconscious humming (harmony only) to the radio. my polar appreciation for trashy crashy pop and the most delicate preludes. my tendency to stockpile things, my outer detached nature that veils a deep, irreparable sensitivity.)

there are so many aspects to being accepted and seen by today's world and its standards of worth and beauty that can be shrugged off by the individual; i believe most of the time a person can say things like, "i don't weigh 106 pounds but i'm a healthy weight," and "i don't look like lily aldridge but i can accept how i was made." but when it comes to determining whether i'm interesting, i don't feel like i can assuage my insecurities by declaring myself a fascinating individual no matter what anyone else thinks, no matter if some damn male hasn't become preoccupied with noticing and pursuing me. that requires external input.

i hate needing external input.
the external is not safe. it does not understand.
it does not see. it is influenced by too many things.
i'm unable to diminish it with strong inner beliefs.
it is objective, and most importantly,
it is out of my control.

------------

i'm constantly irritated by the world and also stuck in its vortex. if i read one more headline about taylor swift or see one more photo of her smug lipsticked disney princess face, i will scream (also, i totally bought her album and listen to it regularly). i'm DONE with everything kendall jenner...i mean, ENOUGH, SOCIETY (but i do think she's lovely and beautiful). the wrung-out graphic tshirt/sweatshirt trend? let's move on, shall we?? of course i type this as a pile of luxe casual graphic tops teeters precariously in my laundry pile (and as i try to get the most recent one, that damn wantable "bliss" sweatshirt, out of my head).

at this point i'm overwhelmed by the amount of hypocritical paradox i apparently contain (and not in a good way). i'm also ashamed of presenting so many internal struggles that are probably completely surmountable for a more motivated, less dramatic person with an ESFP personality.

i've come to terms with so many things, internal and external, in the last five years. i still have so far to go toward finding peace with things from the inside and things on the outside. i realized this week during a situation at work that even if my mind is telling me the person whose displeasure i'm facing is being thoroughly illogical and the displeasure is radiating from a hurt place in her (not directed at a faulty place in me), my soul is still bruised every time i think someone might not be pleased with my character or performance. more and more i'm in a place where i can levelly but firmly defend myself in those situations, but inside i still want to cower and retreat...or worse, attack. because when a hurt person is lashing out at me, i have the presence of mind and the perception to destroy, which is the worst option in a professional situation (even if your boss is a narcissistic, emotionally void tyrant).

the hard part of moving forward is knowing what you must come to terms with, and what you must fight not to accept.

------------

that's more than enough for today. the chaotic ramblings above were hammered out to this album, listened to from start to finish in its entirety. this music reflects everything i feel today, and encourages me to think through everything without fear while lifting my soul to a better place.

{ too much, and it's only the beginning }

no, this isn't a picture from tonight. the me of tonight is the same as the one i'm showing you here. she's also completely different. her hair is four inches shorter, for starters.

------

i've been wanting to write something for a long time. pieces of it keep coming to me, in the moments between more immediate things. but what is more immediate than the thoughts edging their way through my crowded mind, pushing to the forefront, pressing against the inside of my skull?

------

the me of tonight just took a full six minutes off my normal walking route...by running half of it. i've been trying to walk-run: run one block, walk three. run another, walk the rest of the way home. tonight i decided to start running and walk only if i felt i couldn't run anymore. my legs carried me further than i thought they would. i am stronger than i realized. much stronger.

------

confession: sometimes (more often than i think is probably kind) i scroll through photos of the girlfriends of male celebrities i find attractive. yeah, i know that's fucking ridiculous, but it's one of my (now not-so) secret girl behaviors and i might as well be honest about it. my traitorous thumb pushes image after image of these unbelievably gorgeous creatures across my vision and i rake criticisms across my insides.

well you're obviously not his type
since he evidently gravitates toward
impossibly thin
radiantly blonde
exceptionally beautiful women

oh, not surprising:
she's minuscule 
with blue eyes
and delicate wrists, ankles, knees

an attractive person
would never find you attractive

(i mean, first of all, AS IF I'D EVER BE IN A CIRCUMSTANTIAL POSITION TO BE NOTICED, MUCH LESS ADORED, BY A CELEBRITY? okay, honey. there's the first embarrassingly fallacious part of this whole scenario. really? secondly, what is wrong with you? yeah, you aren't unbelievably fit or even remotely reminiscent of what the world would call "skinny" so unless your shoulders magically shrink by like four inches and thirty-three percent of your ass dissolves off your body and several other physically impossible things occur, i mean, please. stop.)

blonder hair, flat chest
tv says, "bigger is better"
south beach, sugar free
vogue says, "thinner is better"

pretty hurts, we shine the light on whatever's worst
perfection is a disease of a nation, pretty hurts, pretty hurts
pretty hurts, we shine the light on whatever's worst
we try to fix something but you can't fix what you can't see
it's the soul that needs the surgery
{ beyonce, "pretty hurts" }

but it's not just the devastating truth that i'll never be noticed or pursued by a breathtakingly exquisite male specimen that pulls me down. it's the belief that no intelligent, witty, strong, admirable, successful man would ever consider me worth being interested in, because i am not an intelligent, witty, strong, admirable, or successful woman. i don't say it to be pitiful. i say it because it's one of the persistent, sulfuric, unwieldy truths i've carried my entire life and will probably always carry. something about being given up as a child has left a hole in me that even the most genuine and profound love has proven unable to assuage.

ergo: needy people repulse and repel me.
because: i fear, and try to reject, my own neediness
ergo: i construct my life in order not need anyone
because: needing someone leads to disappointment
ergo: if i never need, i will never be disappointed
i mean, people, i feel anticipated guilt for when i do let myself need someone else, and he disappoints me, and he becomes aware of this, and feels badly about it. i would feel guilty for making him feel badly for disappointing me, because the fault would be mine for needing him in the first place.

oh, twisted insides.
will you ever be okay?

------

the thing is
all of this, these few measly paragraphs
are so much
but it's only a few paragraphs
in a story so heavy
i'm not sure the entire world's shoulders
are broad enough to bear

so i will bear it
as i have for thirty two years
i will carry it in these two hands
these hands that type over 100 words per minute
that produce the most beautiful handwriting
that play silent chords when the music is on
these hands that no one holds
this soul that hums
all through the night
forever, like a dream

{ a sunday essay }

it's easier to write about being solitary than single. a single person discussing being single is boring and cliché. but i write about it because it's the only thing i know. i also write about it because by writing it, i can know it. knowledge is important to me. with knowledge comes understanding, resignation, and maybe even embrace.

//

we sat at the end of the bar. i drank gin.
we talked about a girl he's not sure about.
i wanted to ask if he talks with her like he does with me.
give me a hug before you go, he said.
i know he finds me beautiful and interesting,
but that doesn't change anything.
if it did, i'm not even sure i'd want it.
i'm beginning to feel as though i'm past love.
not past being loved. past love.
like a moon that's risen and fallen, not to appear again.

//

i have a friend who's been having a hard time. two days ago i dropped everything to bring her coffee and hold her heart. i told her i would be flexible and available these next few days, able to be present if it would be helpful. i offered to take vacation time to attend an appointment with her this week. as an unmarried person without children i almost feel like it's my responsibility to be as free and available as i can, since i don't have the obligations of a spouse or children. (more accurately, i feel like married people with kids expect that i have all the free time in the world because i don't have a husband or kids. but that's tangential to the current subject.)

so over the past couple days i've followed up closely with this friend, reminding her i'm available if she needs to talk but trying to be unobtrusive and aware that when we're struggling, other people can be smothering in their well-intentioned attempts to care for us. as it turns out, she kindly refused my availability entirely and said she's too tired to see anyone. i understand this because sometimes in crisis i need a lot of space.

i was hurt, however, when i visited her blog (at her behest) and read entry after entry about her husband and children, particularly an entry which recalled in detail an outing their family made with "their best friends." last year their families went on an outing and the table was full of toddlers, and this year there were two new babies and the toddlers were in kindergarten, and oh, how time flies, and blah blah blah.

(there it is, that damn "best friends" title again. i despise it and am doing my best to eliminate it from my own vocabulary --- not that it's necessary, because somehow i doubt that anyone in the world is as emotionally neurotic and sensitive as i am. but it feels exclusive to throw those words around and i've been stung enough times that not using them is a choice i'm making.)

as i zoomed out and thought about why that mommy blog entry bothered me, i realized that it wasn't as much with specific regard to my relationship with this particular friend as it was because the plain truth is this: i don't belong in the realm of women who are mothers. i can't understand them like they can understand each other. nor can i support them in a truly empathetic way. i am on the outside of this circle and as hard as i may try, i simply won't gain entrance unless i have a child.

while having a child isn't my primary desire or goal right now (so feeling left out of the mommy club isn't really my right), i still feel left out. because i'm now in that stage of life where people have "couple friends" and "family friends" and "kid friends" and by default, most of their lives revolve in these orbits. of course this is entirely appropriate: when you get married and have a family, the bulk of your energy is devoted to those relationships and the tangible (as well as intangible) maintenance necessary to keep the planets spinning and galaxies functioning.

where does that leave me, an unattached and heretofore barren unit of humanity?
at home alone on my couch reading mommy blogs, apparently.

//

i used to lack self-confidence of any kind.
i never could have seen myself as beautiful,
much less intelligent or interesting.
now i have confidence i am at least interesting,
and i believe other people find me as such.
but that hasn't changed, and doesn't change, anything.
still no one chooses me.

i could pay, he said.
but then we'd have to make out.

i didn't recoil, and it didn't excite me.
i had no fear, no desire. though
for a fleeting moment i remembered how
one's breathing changes, how it feels
to have someone else's hands on you.
i shook my head and laughed.

//

so really, where does the fact that my uterus hasn't incubated another human leave me in a world that, as i continue to age, will be increasingly saturated with women whose bodies have brought another person into the world?

my position in the world of women feels awkward to me because as i mentioned, i'm not a woman who's pining for a child. nor am i a woman (and i never thought i'd see the day i could say this without crying) who's necessarily pining for a relationship.

it's a reflection of the subculture i grew up in and the region of the world i live in now, but these things leave me feeling like not only less of a woman, but less of a human being.

to be fair: if you're me, feeling alienated is, for the most part, your own damn fault. i tend to exclude myself more harshly than others ever would. but i know i'm not alone in feeling alienated from the secret world of women because i'm not married (or engaged or dating or even looking, for that matter) and i don't have kids. not only that, but i'm not actively seeking those things. i'm a super-alien.

even more awkwardly, it's not as though i'm putting domesticity on a back burner because i'm so proficient at or driven in my career (one of the primary reasons it seems women are excused from being focused on domestic pursuits).

it's like i'm the most hardcore femme-underachiever in the history of all things.

//

it was ambitious to call this an essay; in reality, it's a reeling freewrite, like a massive flock of birds swirling inexplicably around a generically central location in a chaotic, beating cloud. if i had to identify a single subject or point i'm trying to talk about or make, i couldn't. i typed for a straight hour without interruptions and without pausing and re-reading everything i've just said makes me think i'm trying to talk about self, self as woman, and belonging, for a start.

//

so he didn't push you up against a wall or anything? he asked.
no, i said, trying not to look aghast. you knew him. what do YOU think?
yeah, he conceded. i'm sorry.

at this point i realized he was genuinely sorry i hadn't been handled passionately, and i found it both poignant and piercing. because no, in that relationship i wasn't handled that way, but i wouldn't have appreciated it anyway. and because the person i was talking to was operating under the assumption that i regretted not having sex, or not being treated as someone that a man wanted to have sex, with. and once again i wonder at this point if i should feel sorry for myself...if a woman is not truly a woman until a man desires her physically and --- for lack of a more romantic way to put it --- capitalizes on that desire.

//

so i have no idea where i fit into the grand puzzle of the world.
but i know me. on my own. separate from all of that.
i don't know how to measure myself against external standards anymore.

i used to identify with my percentages - my grades, my class rank, silly titles like "section leader" and "alto 1." things are much less quantitative now. but somehow standards and comparisons still occur so definitively: unmarried. divorced. childless. we still label and rank ourselves and each other and while it can be helpful and even welcome, that can also be isolating and reductive.

//

it's 42 minutes past by bedtime and i must stop.
i am not going to go back and edit this before publishing.
until next time.

{ the best company }

i've been backed into a corner for a week or so, letting my thoughts get overly caught up in a certain situation which upset me more than it should. i haven't felt so desperately stuck on something i knew was so thoroughly un-fixable in a long time, and i went so far as to actually ask a good friend to make time for me so i could talk it through. i told her i was going to sit down and write it all out first, see if i could move through what felt like a steel wall six feet thick on my own. i was at the end of myself though, exhausted by cyclical thought patterns and steeped in self-loathing (what is wrong with you? who gets hung up on things like this? why can't you just get over it?). anytime i resort to external human insight, you know it's bad. it's not that i don't value other peoples' insight, but most peoples' understanding of who i am at my core is so limited that their input only frustrates me further.

i haven't had to summon large amounts of understanding for my own benefit toward a specific situation for a long time. i apply my inner resources to the lives of others all the time, but self-examination is an entirely different endeavor for me. this is largely because i find most people's situations fairly easy to untangle, but even under the considerable force of my self-awareness and directness, i often find things i don't want to face or wade into when my vision turns inward. or maybe it's the opposite: i often know exactly what needs to be done, what direction i need to go, and don't want to do it or go there. being oneself requires so much work. growing beyond oneself, even more. life doesn't leave any of us with much excess energy to apply to any of that work.

so two nights ago i sat in the still darkness of my living room at 2am, blinking into the glow of this screen, and started from the beginning.

at some points i rambled on for line after line, not bothering with paragraphs or proper punctuation. at others i made numbered lists to order my more complex thoughts. i wrote and i wrote. every ugly thought, every immature feeling. and as i ran out of things to say, i began to make my last numbered point. what i was going to type flashed in my mind before i typed it, and before i knew it, the tears came. fast and unexpected, they burned trails down my face and in that moment i knew i'd finally reached the bottom of it. i stood in the bottom of the wound, on the root that this particular situation had been scraping raw. i truly stumbled upon it after days of bruising my shoulders on the dead ends of a fathomless labyrinth.

so i cried.
out of brokenness and out of relief.
out of frustration and with gratitude.
i am not on an easy road.
but i am here as myself and with myself
and i am the best company any girl could hope for.

//

i hear a voice calling

calling out for me

these shackles i've made in an attempt to be free

be it for reason, be it for love

i won't take the easy road

i try to keep on keeping on

{ one day, pearls }

i've neglected writing for a long time. i wouldn't say it's been deliberate avoidance. it's certainly not been for lack of things turning over (and over, and over) in my mind. one day there will be pearls from me. one day.

//

i'm the slowest person ever to come around to change. some people thrive on variety and live for the opportunity to be carried on new wind. i'm the opposite. i settle in. i hunker down. i take root. and once i'm here, i'm slow to go. it distresses me, this feeling that i might be the person most resistant to change on the face of the planet. it feels like a gross defect. but it is what it is. in some situations this rock-like commitment to things is beneficial (once i love you, i love you). in others, it's absolutely agonizing (once i love you, i love you, even if you break me, if you destroy me, even then i love you).

i'm also a person who keeps a lot inside, except if i've decided to trust you, in which case you get more than you ever wanted. for the most part i have no idea how people perceive me, but i'd guess unless you know me well, there's probably a lot more going on with me than you suspect. years in ministry and administrative relational work have forced me to perfect a light, airy manner. while i can be an extremely silly and buoyant spaz, i'm naturally a pensive, serious, introspective person.

everything leaves me wanting to apologize:
i'm sorry for being closed off. i'm sorry for over-sharing.
if the paradox is frustrating for you, can you imagine
what it's like from the inside?

//

(this is why i don't write.
because there's too much to address
and no one with enough interest
who will want to listen
until there's nothing more to say.)

//

my mother has now lost her father and her brother within four months of each other.
i look on, beaten down inside, and have nothing to say.
it's the problem with hating platitudes and empty comfort.
when there's truly nothing to say,
i say nothing.

some things deserve swear words, obscene gestures, alcohol swiftly poured.
some things go beyond. some things cannot be touched.
not even with fuck or a hole in the wall or gin, alone, cold, in the dark.

//

i'm paying close attention to what i put into my body these days. the past six months have been so unhealthy physically and otherwise and two weeks ago i finally got sick of not eating all day and then eating too much, sick of feeling like a foreigner in my own skin, sick enough of bad habits to do something about it. i've been walking in the evenings, headphones firmly planted in my ears. i've been eating breakfast. half-portions of other meals. i haven't had pop or alcohol in almost 2 weeks, nor have i had iced coffee (tragic, just tragic). i think i can re-incorporate things back into my days, but first i have to detox. it's difficult for all of this not to be about deprivation. it's difficult not to fixate on numbers or even a final desired physical result.

change. adaptation. new habits, in minute increments.
this, i can do.

//

i will always feel dwarfed by people a fraction of my age who have released albums and started businesses and won championships and made millions of dollars and raised children and obtained academic degrees and bought houses, found spouses, chased and taken hold of dreams. the magnitude of my desires are mismatched with the level of ambition and courage with which i was born. i'm inspired by successful people. they also make me ashamed of myself. they are a reminder of how poor i've always been at promoting myself, how i can barely accept compliments, how little drive i possess.

i think maybe some people were born to move and shake and never be still and make things happen, real, big things that affect tons of people. i think others (like me) were born to have deep meaning to a precious few. we were born to live a profoundly singular existence. maybe the person i will know, reach, and move most in my lifetime is myself.

i am slowly accepting this.

//

arise, go forth,

and fear no darkness.

{ theoden, king of rohan, lord of the rings }

{ so i happened }

late last night i sat in a driveway with one of my closest friends and we agreed to stay up for a meteor shower meant to take place five hours later. we drove to get iced coffee and then we watched australia (which you should really see as soon as possible). we talked about people we miss, uncertainties, and miniature horses. at 2am we drove to a deserted parking lot, threw patio furniture cushions on the ground, and flopped down to watch the stars. shivering in my down coat, i thought to myself that if i could i'd never leave that spot.

an emerald green meteor shot through the sky, and we gasped.

--------------------

most of the women i know are mothers with anywhere from 1-3 kids under the age of 5. they share their worries and triumphs with me, and i compare notes across the board. i'm beginning to feel like a mommy impostor, because i find myself contributing regularly to mommy conversations even though i have no children. no one's called my biological bluff yet ("hello!! unused uterus here, which means i have no authority on any of these subjects whatsoever!!!"), which i take as a sign i've been listening and re-articulating well. (i also think i remind my friends that they may be mothers, but before that was true, i knew them as single women, newlyweds, accountants, teachers, knitters, camp counselors, party-lovers, dreamers, and i call out those aspects of them which i imagine is refreshing.) so instead of feeling alienated because of my unused anatomy, i'm trying to engage with motherhood the only way i can: by asking questions, sharing thoughts from an outside perspective, and processing the adaptation and transformation of motherhood with these women.

it's been a bit startling to find that so many of the struggles of new (and repeated) motherhood are universal regardless of age, personality type, temperament, expectations, or religious background. perhaps the most pervasive adversary to the vulnerability of sleeplessness and responsibility for another human's survival is the concept of The Perfect Woman.

she's a figure who dances in all our heads, and we know she's a caricature. but repeated exposure over time fools us into seeing her as a correctly proportionate ideal not just to strive toward, but to consider attainably correct and morally good.

bullshit.

The Perfect Woman spins and twirls in our minds whether we're mothers or not (instead of feeling pressure to lose all my baby weight in 3 weeks, purée organic food every morning, and bedeck my offspring in cruelty-free outfits in the perfect morning light of their pinterest-worthy nurseries, i adopt the belief that i should be a yoga-addicted, kale-obsessed, career-oriented size 4 superwoman with perfect skin who does a juice cleanse every three weeks). there isn't anything wrong with trying to become the best women we can. all ideals don't need to be toppled. but let's not pull ourselves down in the process of trying to stand tall.

--------------------

and i realized that the reason why good things

were not happening to me as often as wanted them to,

was because i in fact was a good thing that needed to happen.

i needed to happen to me, to other people and to the world.

and so i happened.

{ c. joybell c. }

{ the unexpected becoming }

alors, quelques choses. pour vous, un peu, peut-être, mais aussi pour moi-même.

en verité, seulement pour moi-même.

(je suis desolée, mais je ne suis pas desolée.)

held belief: introverts aren't good with people.
evident truth: i am good with people.

i've been coming to the slow (very slow) realization that i am good (very good) at my job, which in large part involves reading, assuaging, and managing people. i can be quite direct and coercive when the occasion calls for timely and effective results (just ask my coworkers: when they hear my heels coming toward their operatory, they know it's time to get to it). but i've been continually surprised by how much more efficiently people function under straightforward direction, and how many people actually welcome being told what to do, how, and when. as a (particularly) autonomous individual, the thought of being handled in such a manner is dreadful. but as i've been unofficially pushed (as in, no one knows what the hell to do and is standing around and we're running behind so i storm into the confusion and say things like, will you take this to sterilization? and help her turn over this room, please and his case is in the lab, second shelf and let's go, okay, we good here?) into a position of leadership at work over the past six months, i've had to stop projecting my distaste for being closely managed onto others and overcome my fear of being explicitly directive (because no one likes a bossy person, and a bossy girl in lipstick and heels is even worse)(because over anything else, a girl should endeavor to be liked)(yeah, loooooots of held beliefs being smashed to pieces by evident truths over here lately, it's been fun, reeeeeeaal fun).

however, the results speak for themselves: the office runs like a machine. our outstanding AR is down to almost half of what it was two months ago. we're utilizing all the additional space in our new office. each person is held accountable to give their best on the behalf of their coworkers and our patients, and i'm the one exhorting them to do so. i am the momentum and the unifying force. without me, things would falter.

i don't even know if that's something i'm proud of. it would be nice to share some of the responsibility with, i don't know, ONE other person. on the other hand, perhaps i find myself in this position because i'm singularly equipped to fill it...which is weird for me to think about. i've never truly considered myself a leader because i've always felt so separate from most of humanity --- not accepted by people, not understood by them, and therefore incapable of motivating them or commanding any sort of compliance from them. moreover, i don't see myself as lovable, and in my mind, you have to love and respect someone to want to follow them. so i can't explain what's happening, but people are responding to me. they respect an authority i've never been officially given. furthermore, they appear to not only be willing to do as i say, but it seems they also want to please me. it's confounding. i've become something i never meant to become.

--------------------

held belief: i am horrible at change.
evident truth: i evolve. i adapt. i rise to challenge and surmount it.
evolved belief: i have a strong aversion to change, but that doesn't mean i'm incapable of it.

--------------------

i had dinner with a friend last night. we sipped margaritas as big as our heads, consumed what i'm sure was more than a recommended daily amount of carbs, and didn't judge ourselves or each other. i've been having some health symptoms, minor but troublesome, and we're close-but-not-close enough that i felt comfortable sharing them with her because (contrarily) i trust no one and i don't want to frighten anyone i do trust. i heard myself saying, see, with anyone else it's different, because they have husbands or children who would truly suffer if something happened to them. i'm not saying people wouldn't be sad if something happened to me, but i don't have anyone whose life would be that profoundly altered. for me, it's just me.

she said, no. it's important. you need to take care of yourself. who's going to take care of you, but you? 

sometimes i think i must lead the loneliest life of anyone i know. there are people in the world who love me, but at the end of the day when i speak my fears to the darkness, there's no one listening but me. so my life is lonely but it's also full of power. it's up to me to perceive and articulate my anxieties, to myself or to others. and it's up to me to seek out constructive ways to alleviate the pressures i feel. others can have input, but when it comes down to it, i can't say to a partner i did this for you, i sacrificed for you. i'm solely responsible. the choices are mine. there's no one in this bed, but me.

for now, i am okay with that. i even embrace it.
but that's another evolution to unravel on another afternoon.

{ the very-inside }

this morning i woke up at 4:25am and tossed fitfully until my alarm went off at 6. i dreamt i was a wolf leaping easily through the air, teeth bared, roaring in the defense of something important. i woke with a start, muscles quivering. in the pre-dawn darkness i felt powerful and alone.

----------

he came to the counter. i sneezed once, twice.
i think i'm allergic to you.

----------

you asked me to run at the front of the pack. i didn't want to obey. you stepped toward me, lowered your voice. set the pace, you said. it's you who sets the pace.

so i ran.

----------

the thing about setting the pace is that your job isn't to run faster or further than anyone else. you don't get to be spectacular in your loneliness. you run in front of everyone, but at a pace they can match. the point is to keep them close, at your hip. the point is to share breath. the point is to take the brunt of the wind in your face. to manage resistance and make a way. to protect them. to go first. to give them something to strive for without being unattainable. to forge, and remain reachable.

i think that's much more difficult than racing ahead.
much more difficult, by far.

-----------

what if it is not my lot to be spectacularly lonely?
what if it is my job to lead, but keep those who follow close?
to mentor...not to exorbitantly exceed?

i'd like to think i'm so unbelievably extraordinary that i'm not capable of taking the hands of others and showing them how to do better and be better. there's less responsibility in being a shooting star. then it's just you streaking nebulae across the sky, so beautiful and fleeting you go unseen and untouched by most. but to glimmer steadfastly amongst clusters of stars, sometimes outshone by neighboring bodies...that seems like a sacrifice. that seems noble.

i don't want to submit to that because it feels noble and martyr-like and it feeds my isolation complex. i want to firmly grasp my purpose because it's the right thing for me. i also don't want to over-reach. i don't need to do the most extreme awe-inspiring things because i see other people succeeding at them, and i don't need to feel like a sloth or a loser because i don't entertain unrealistic notions.

we're taught to dream shatteringly big dreams and crack our bootstraps like whips.
but what if some of us are meant to live simple and ordinary days?
what if, for some of us, brilliance is woven through normal and sometimes tedious lives?

i have so many questions.
i hardly know what to do.

----------

i make myself cry with the dizzying force of my unknowing, my wondering.
it feels too big for me.
i shrink into my ordinariness. i can't figure it all out.
i send overwrought emails to friends and then bite my lip, wishing i hadn't.

but in the rhythms of the songs in my headphones, i hear all will be well and all will be well, sometimes with quiet building intensity, sometimes with relentless drive, sometimes in the silence, in the fermatas.

times to surface

times to dive

----------

i've never felt like less of a freak than when you wrote: you most likely feel like a freak because...
because you get it. you really get it. more than anyone.
i can explain it (and i do, chronically), but you get it before the sentences have poured out.
i can ask (and i do, repeatedly), and sometimes you answer and sometimes you ask right back.
i think it's safe to say no one in the world can dialogue with me the same way.
there's no one who can say i'm lovely while truly understanding what it means to say such a thing, while truly understanding what such a thing means to me.
oh, i am thankful.

----------

i'm in a strange place, bowing under the pull of a gravity i don't recognize.
every day i feel disoriented, keenly aware, reborn.
facing these things in a season of life i always imagined would be full of stability, security, and fulfilled dreams is challenging, discouraging, inspiring.

i am not a finished product. not even close, not even remotely.
i'm more and more unraveled all the time. with every skein that comes off, falling in tangles from my life, more is revealed --- the colors underneath. and that's the part of me that's so startling and mysterious: the inside, what i think of as the very-inside, the glossy cobalt feathers fanned across my soul's ribcage. right now a lot of what i see is indecipherable: figures without faces, shapes without any recognizable angles, characteristics, or geometry.

----------

so when your letter arrived
(rectangular: a shape i could name)
with just my initials printed across the front
(only people who aren't afraid of me address me that way)
it was like an inside joke
(the best kind)
it was like being embraced
(just as you begin to cry)
it was like being known
(how could you have known?)
it was like a neighboring star
blinking in my direction, kind and unwavering,
saying, i see you. i'm beside you.
you don't have to run
anymore.

----------

. . . .

{ a long(est) post for a long(ass) year }

i've been avoiding sitting down to write this, but it has to be done or it's going to keep taking up room in my chest --- room i don't have and don't want to keep giving up.
this isn't the unabashedly hopeful, endlessly inspiring first-post-of-the-year you've been seeing all over the internet. it's also not the real-but-not-too-real-and-conclusively-optimistic type of post that occasionally crops up all over the place. there you go. you've been warned.

truth: i resent this new year.
truth: i haven't put 2013 behind me.
truth: i don't have electric thrills running through me, morse-coding the knowledge that "2014 is going to be the best year yet" all over my insides.

furthermore, i've been having a hard time relating to those who plunged into the new year with brand-new souls and bright, fresh faces. i disconnected from social media because with every effusive grandiose mini-speech about how 2013 "had its ups and downs" but so-and-so "had a feeling" that 2014 "was going to blow all other years ever out of the water" i just got angrier and more disgusted.

i also found myself without any real new year's eve plans, kind of on purpose. expectations are always out of proportion for events like NYE, and that kind of situation (disproportionate expectations, underwhelming reality) always throws me off. actually, the only person i wanted to see on new year's eve was myself. for the first time in my life, i had a specific and articulated desire on this day: to spend new year's eve in solitude. to attempt to process things that have happened this year and go into the new calendar year in quiet strength. the best part was, i didn't feel at all motivated by self-pity or misanthropic tendencies. it's just that every other option seemed frivolous and distracting. it also felt like i'd be avoiding what simply and truly needed to be done --- what i simply and truly wanted to do.

i made the mistake of telling one of my coworkers about my plans, and was told more than once that it was "the dumbest idea ever." (note to self: keep all solitary plans to oneself in this extrovert-ridden world, lest one wants to be made to feel utterly defunct.) i'm ashamed to admit i ended up hanging out with aforementioned coworker because i succumbed to peer pressure (and the LIE that spending new year's eve in solitude and intention was "dumb"). it wasn't horrible --- i drank gin & tonics with her husband while she (five and a half months pregnant) made half-joking, half-bitter comments about our level of inebriation from the couch. (okay, maybe it was kind of horrible.)

so why am i here again, rambling endlessly on and posting more bedhead-centric, makeup-absent selfies? these were taken the morning of january 2nd, the day i was planning to write this post. i woke up feeling...empty. like a clean slate, but not in the way you'd think. just...like...nothing. apparently i'd successfully voided myself of expectation, and therefore, disappointment. what an achievement! and yet i didn't even feel human. hope and disappointment are essential parts of...being. the things i yearn for and the things i struggle with make me, me. the weight of them bears an impression on the earth. my loss and resilience displace the molecules around me. they make me real.

reality: i am not "over" 2013.
reality: i am not ready for 2014.
reality: 2013 is over, and 2014 is here.

the flipping of a calendar page has nothing to do with what's going on inside me. i'm just not one of those people. it makes sense: it's why i've lived in the same town since i was 8 years old and for the most part, not been bothered by it. this aspect of who i am is paradoxical and hard to explain: i'm highly affected by aesthetic details, smells, and the beauty of the natural world. but details like 12/31 turning into 1/1? my soul doesn't give a shit. which is also hard to understand, because i'm very affected by symbols, so why don't i buy into the most obvious symbol of renewal known to humankind?

so: things happened in 2013. things i'll carry for the rest of my life.
also: i hate resolutions. i don't set goals because i'm terrified i won't achieve them. and being disappointed in others doesn't hold a candle to being disappointed in myself. not even close. now i'm hearing all of you saying, "but honey, if you don't set goals, there's no way you'll ever achieve them anyway...it's all in your mind! get after your life! do it! i know you can! 2014 is gonna be the best year ever!"

i've spent the last week impatiently skimming new year's resolution posts and scoffing. now before you discard me as a happiness-hating, bitter old hag, know that all that scoffing has been directed at myself. i think everything i feel toward new year's this year is small-hearted, grating, and pessimistic. i think the fact that i can't even make resolutions because i'm afraid i'm incapable of keeping them is pathetic. i'm fostering a lack of belief in my ability to surmount 2013 and i'm protecting myself from the merest possibility of failure in 2014 (which incidentally also portrays a lack of self-belief --- that i wouldn't be able to handle the sting of coming up short).

the thing is, i don't know how to fix it. it's easy enough to compile a list of things i want to do this year, but to actually believe in the person who made that list --- well, not only is that a pursuit so trite i could punch myself in the face, but --- i don't know if it's possible. and if i can't believe in myself, well --- isn't that the ultimate failure to rule all failures, the failure that precludes everything good?

at this point i'm asking myself (and if you've made it this far, you've likely been asking for the last twenty minutes): so where the hell does this leave me?

i have a lot of work to do before i'm "over" 2013. in fact, i may never "get over" 2013 --- and i'm okay with that. i think it's realistic to believe that there are things that happen in our lives that change us forever --- the pages of that chapter are wrinkled and warped, like they had water spilled on them. i don't need to pressure myself to replace ripped pages and turn in a pristinely bound year.

there are things i want to do in 2014. and they don't have to be "the biggest/best things ever." some people thrive on massively lofty goals. i don't --- they shut me down. i'm afraid to want things --- anything. but i can want things. i need to want things. i mean, forget can and want --- i do want things, so what's the point of pretending i don't in a fruitless effort to convince myself i'm impervious to hope and despair? i'm not a boundlessly energetic person, so i certainly don't have energy to spare lying to my own irrepressibly discerning soul. in that light, here's my list. it's easy and it's kind, which is just what i need.

1. what i want: to purchase a keyboard. i was born to make music and i think i might be good at it. and even if neither of those things are true, it's profoundly good for me to do musical projects. how to get it: i need to research what keyboard i want, get a price range, and start saving. i'm still paying off this new computer, so depending on the price, i might need to implement a saving project --- like putting aside money normally spent on coffee or makeup for a period of time.
2. what i want: to go west again. this is a big one --- i want to hit south dakota, idaho, and seattle this year. in fact, i feel like this is necessary to the health of my heart. how to get it: planning. and more saving. i might need to give up coffee and makeup for six months.
3. what i want: to put myself first. i've changed a lot this year. i think the desire to hibernate (that's been ongoing since october) is born out of the knowledge that i don't know myself like i used to, and that really bothers me. i want to learn the person i've become so i can try to do what's best for her. i want to listen to myself more carefully (because i was absolutely right --- i should've stayed in on new year's eve). i often feel neglected because i seem to be everyone's second string; just about everyone in my life has a significant other, a fiancé, a spouse, or a child that comes first by default. the truth is, i often put myself in that same spot: i'll take time alone if no one else has time for me. what the hell? how can i feel non-prioritized by others if i don't prioritize myself? how to get it: stay in when i feel like i should go out, but don't really want to. spend time alone on purpose, not just as a last resort when other plans fall through. indulge in my love of music. oh, and write. write. write some more.

it's not going to be easy. it's never been easy. i want to push everything away and eat cookies and watch netflix and wear yoga pants all day. i want to buy another lipstick when i'm feeling sad and restless and call it good. i want to fold and re-fold my clothing into neat color-coordinated piles in the middle of the night for that jolt (and illusion) of control. i want to disappear because that would be easier than facing the work and the wanting. i want to throw up my hands and say i don't know, i just don't know and give in because i don't know where to start. i feel like i'm on some cosmic playground trying to duck between two whirring jump ropes, bewildered and mesmerized by the motion. but what choice do i have? what can i do but begin? and if the ropes catch my heel or slap my shoulders, well, those cosmic rope-slingers will just have to start over.

i wanted to do

something, anything,

but i didn't know what to do.

so i did this.

this is my something.

{ jason watt }

{ j'etais }

yesterday i had the urge to cook. i assure you this doesn't happen often. not because i dislike cooking, but because i don't think i'm very good at it and prefer to play sous-chef (i'm a contemplative but efficient chopper). i sell myself extremely short when it comes to domestic endeavors; in the recesses of my mind, i think myself inept at certain things because a man hasn't chosen me to be his wife. (fucked up, right? i know. but sometimes a belief is so subconsciously held that it never really comes into the light, it's not spoken...and once it's illuminated and said aloud, only then does it become evident how painfully deformed it is. so as embarrassing as it is for me to admit that i think i suck because no one wants to marry me, it's important that i say it so i can see how ridiculous it is.)

there are twisted arteries of belief in me, petrified seeds that have never been cultivated. i am untangling my spiritual and emotional circulatory systems. i am redirecting light to neglected, barren landscapes. i am outgrowing some stunted, circular beliefs about the world and about myself. it's not a dreamy, inspirational, blurry-edged thing. it's painful. my eyes and my throat ache. it chokes me. i will not paint a happy picture of this when that's not at all what it is...this is nasty work. battlefield surgery: desperate, lonely, shaky, pain-hazed. there is liberation ahead, and it calls to me, but it makes no gentle promises. it says, you will go through hell before you reach me. you will lose so much. but come. i believe you will make it. come.

(shit, where was i? it's really hard for me to write about concrete things.)

cooking. yes, i had the urge to cook. i made a list (categorized according to where the items could be found in the store: dairy, dry goods, produce, chocolate). i wrestled everything from the cart to the car, from the car to the house (incidentally, this is often when i feel most lonely: when i'm doing things that require physical stamina that other women have the opportunity to have their significant others do. but when my friends' significant others try to help me with things like this, it makes me uncomfortable.) i unpacked it all, laid out ingredients geometrically on the kitchen table (best to start from order, when you can). i set empty pots on burners, invisibly mapping my course, my timing. thinking too much about it overwhelmed me, so eventually i decided to just begin.

i melted the butter, boiled the water, minced the garlic, measured the cream. i wasn't sure that stuff should go in when it did, because i needed 12 minutes for this and 8 minutes for the other thing. i put it in anyway.

the thing is, everything came out perfectly (homemade fettucine alfredo with spinach and parmesan-crusted chicken, if you're curious). i made good attempts at planning everything out, which probably helped, but the main thing is that i did. i'm a thinker by nature --- i deliberate and i analyze. action is hard for me, because until you do, any mistake or undesired outcome is only in your mind.

there's obviously an abstract life lesson here, something about jumping headlong into my days without fear or hesitation, something about sunbursts and embracing storm clouds, something about surrender and strength. there's probably a poem here, art of some sort, something i could wring from the satisfying rush of heat from the oven, something about how silly i feel every time i touch a pot holder.

but for now this was just a night i spent by myself, quiet, in my own company. it was a night i ate at the coffee table in the semi-dark. laughter from the neighbor's open window peppered the silence. big, joyous juliet roses hung their heads sleepily over my dinner. i had mail to read, clothes to put away, and an uncertain, unseen future to consider. but last night i sat back, crossed my legs, took a breath, and ate, and was.

{ vision }

in the beginning, i believe my eyes were too widely open --- which led to me squeezing them shut against the glare of too much unmanageable truth. 

in retrospect i see that grief rendered me alternately myopic and all-seeing.

tears: they blind and they clarify.

now i comb through an ocean of words with five-years-later eyes,

and it shocks me how little you ever had to say.
how could i have failed to notice the imbalance between us?

but i can see it now. i can see everything.

you cracked my world like an egg, and you executed this motion with the swift utilitarian force of a mind already on the next step of its own recipe.

you struck like lightning right through the center of me; those four ring-years of life will always be warped and charred. 

you left my home for some better wild world and opened every window before you went. all manner of things that didn't belong made their way into carefully-arranged rooms and quiet hallways. they burrowed in my closets, ransacked my cupboards, bit my fingers, scared me at night. 

you destroyed me, and you saved me.

you saved me --- from you.

--------------------------------------------------------

every day i find out something

which makes me glad.

{ helen keller }

{ here today, ____ tomorrow }

i'm here.

i haven't felt the urge to blog for several weeks. work has been busier, and since i'm without a functional personal computer right now, i don't spend as much time with technology. in this modern age it seems atrocious that i haven't had a working home computer for a few years, doesn't it? i blame my aversion to dropping very large sums of money, my inability to decide which machine i really want, and the rise of the magnificently computer-like smartphone.

but i've been here, and i've been going through a weird phase of figuring out what to disconnect from. the first thing to go was facebook, and i find i'm so much happier now that i'm oblivious of everyone's relationship status, picture-perfect holidays, baby gripes, and need for rides to the airport. don't get me wrong, it's all well and good if you're engaged, making homemade cranberry garland, wondering why your child's vomit is teal-colored, or traveling every other weekend. but the lack of fuel for my internal comparison fires has been so healthy.

in a lot of ways i feel like i've emerged from another layer of the chrysalis --- and i feel strange, just-born, unaccustomed to the world in my fragile new skin. it's an invigorating, curious, and baffling stage of life to be in at my age. at one time long ago i thought i'd be established in the world by now, firmly rooted in domesticity with a husband and at least two children. as it is, i am unmoored. and while i'm afforded all sorts of freedom and flexibility, at times i feel lost, attached to nothing.

i'm finding myself, and sometimes i get tired of searching.
i'm beginning to write again, but it's hard.
for so long i haven't wanted to immortalize my feelings.
now i think i have to write to figure some things out,
but i'm out of practice. and i think --- yes ---
i harbor some fear of what i'll produce if i begin again.
not that it will be bad, but that it will be good
and then i'll have to figure out what to do about that.

i suppose there's nothing to do but start.
i've always felt that's the hardest part.
how do we find our courage? by simply beginning?