{ 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.

{ i am easily gotten down, it's true }

i want to get on

with getting on with things...

{ imogen heap }

i'm not ready to go further from where i left off last time, but i will say this:
i'm slowly coming to the realisation that i am not hard to love. i actually think i'm quite lovable (and before you think i'm a prick, trust me when i say that if you knew how unfavorably i think of myself 98% of the time, you'd know i'm not just being conceited). but i do think loving me is hard, because it's so hard for me to accept love. is there a more concise way to say this...? yes. here it is: i'm lovable, but i'm not easy to love. does that clear everything up?

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

today was a long painful decline with unpredictable and unwelcome bursts of anxiety. considering my personality type and my daily environment, i think i do very well managing and masking my fatigue...it's a skill i've had no choice but to cultivate and excel at, or i would've either been fired or committed to a mental institution. but today...today started with an explosive bang and on several occasions found me on the phone with one person while four or five other people carried on animated conversations two feet away, or confronting a frustrated person, or having to deliver unexpected (bad) news. and before this turns into a full-blown "my job is so hard and i wanted to punch everyone in the face" episode, i'll stop myself and say this: even having stayed a full hour after everyone else went home to wrap up the day and prepare the office for tomorrow's patients, i still left feeling completely overwrought and in need of deep repair. wind me up that tightly and i need serious decompression. it's a drawback of being me.

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

today's serious decompression has consisted of:

• a quick and ready dinner of quinoa patties i made sunday afternoon in anticipation of a work week just like the one i'm leaning into right now (way to anticipate your basic needs, kjk)
• my bottom half currently being hugged by a crimson-magenta pair of leggings (go on, judge me)
• the third glass of water in the past hour (have fun with that once i crush an early bedtime in a few minutes, bladder)
• day six of thirty days of yoga (wasn't sure i'd find my breath after 11 solid hours of barely keeping it together, but there it was, right where i left it)
• imogen heap's "ellipse" in my ears (hello 2009, it's been awhile)
• tomorrow's lunch: already made, last night (because somehow i knew today was going to suck times ten thousand, well played once again adult self)
• the quiet time with a real book and its pages i'm about to spend before turning out the lights

on that: i made a few "soft" resolutions this year. as in, they're not getting written down in any official manner, i didn't stress over them, and they arose completely organically out of a continued desire to keep moving forward (not out of a forced place of introspection related to the turning of a calendar page). one of them is as follows: i want to get better rest, and better at resting. i know for a scientific fact that all the damn pixels in my amazing personal electronic devices tell my brain to act up even more than it normally is at the end of an already-overstimulating day. but all i wanna do at the end of an exhausting day is zone out with makeup tutorials and instagram...hashtag, welcome to being human, right? i've been telling myself i need to seriously revamp my bedtime routine for months, but i think i just wasn't exhausted enough to ditch the social media security blanket(s) and get real about helping myself to truly wind down before bed...because the only thing worse than not being able to wind down is the condemning voice that chimes in so sweetly at that point, saying super helpful things like, what's wrong with you? why are you so retarded and unable to fall asleep like a normal person? you know you're going to feel this tomorrow, don't you? only four hours and thirteen minutes until your alarm goes off. way to go, weirdo stupid face.) 

if you're human and if you're honest, you'll feel me when i say that breaking the habit of checking instagram ONE last time (as if missing the 764th aerial latté shot that day would be some sort of personal travesty) is way harder than it should be. (it doesn't help that i'm just a night owl anyway, out of the crazy belief that if i go to sleep i might miss something fantastical. i have always been this way.) also, doesn't it just make sense that watching something will definitely help get you ready to shut down? problem is, if you're me and you have a very active mind, not to mention an easily ignitable imagination, everything except the dumbest of pointless comedies blasts unlimited tunnels of thought-possibility into existence that just have to be explored before sleeping. another drawback of being me (there are many).

so it's one of my soft resolutions to reduce pre-sleep screen time in favor of other, more productive rituals. so far it's hit or miss: monday night i read in bed for a full hour before turning out the lights. last night i jumped down a social media rabbit hole and was sliding my thumb across my phone screen way past lights-out. tonight i hoped to have 30 minutes of reading before sleep...but i've already been blogging for 28 minutes longer than i planned. however, the words were asking to be said and a little spontaneity never hurt anybody.

on that note, i'm off to my book and my duvet

and my way-too-soon, damnit-it's-still-dark alarm.

bonnes rêves, mes amis.

{ 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.

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

{ finally }

i was talking with my parents about "best friends" a few days ago. this is terminology i've never truly felt comfortable with (which doesn't make sense since i'm quite a private woman with an extremely small circle of trusted soulmates). but designating one person as my "best friend" has always felt too exclusive, even for me. conversely, assigning that label to three or four (or seven or ten) people detracts from its meaning, in my opinion. not that any of this is worth nailing down, since each person feels and handles her relationships subjectively and it's impossible to strictly define or understand what means what when it comes to classifying relationships.

in any case, i think my aversion to placing the "best friend" crown has a lot to do with how that crown has (or hasn't) been set upon my head in the past. i think some people toss it around too easily. i think due to the complicated nature of female friendship, sometimes i've thought i wore the crown only to realize i don't at all --- or worse, i do wear it, but so do fifteen other people.

now i'm not here to start a debate (or an avalanche of misunderstanding or hurt feelings) about whether the use of the term "best friend" is heartfelt or hurtful, important or useless. i'm here to tell you this:

after asking my parents if they had "best" married-couple friends and exploring their different relationships (of which they have dozens...their social calendar would wither my soul in a matter of days), my mom turned to me. "so who's your best friend?"

and somewhat to my surprise, without hesitation
and as matter-of-factly as you could imagine, i replied,
"myself."

neither of my parents seemed particularly taken aback (something i'm proud of, because i've been making efforts to more straightforwardly articulate my nature to them this past year). i thought i detected a hint of sadness in my mom's reception of my answer --- i think she just wants me to find someone and get married because that's what she did and it's turned out genuinely and thoroughly well for her.

although in the moment my answer came as naturally as breathing, after the fact my heart was beating quickly. i've been waiting for this day, when i'd feel like a whole person without consciously trying to feel like a whole person. i'd say it snuck up on me, but that would be wrong; it's come after years (and years) of...of what?

shit. crap. junk. grief. sorrow. loss. rejection.
joy. wandering. restoration. acceptance. love.

so i'm probably the grossest hypocrite ever: i just labeled myself my own best friend. does it get more exclusive than that? i think not. somehow though, i don't even mind.

{ we are rising suns }

what things will linger

only in memory?

this month i turned one year older.
this month i became more myself.
this month, i wear purple fingernails:
we're going into the third week. i'm on my third shade.

this afternoon i drank champagne.
right now cookies are in the oven.
it has been a time of being kind
to myself.

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

what tongues can whisper of coming remedy?

push out the melody

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

until this month, i'd been feeling behind:
behind all my friends who are committed, married, and procreating.
behind the people with fantastic jobs and financial security.
behind the couples nestled in newly-bought homes.
behind the people who are happy. who have found their place.

then my birthday hit and i realized:
i am not behind. i am not subject to society or subculture's timeline for a life.
i am not tethered to a conventional trajectory. i am not defunct.
i am where i belong. it may not be comfortable. it may be solitary.
but i am where i should be. so much is not figured out. but it is right.

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

what things will linger only in memory?

clocks tick, hands don't move

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

i lost my grandpa last week. i saw him in his last days,
shuddered by his bed as he labored to breathe,
tears running in rivulets down my face.
it's not something i'll ever forget.

in the ensuing days, as everything you would expect has rained down,
i've faced so many humbling things about myself. they rise unbidden in
layers, in humid vapors of grief.

i want people to think the best of me. i want to to do what people expect of me.
what my parents think of me, of my actions, is still painfully important to me.
i've matured in the sense that i don't always do what i think they want me to,
and it bothers me less when i realize i haven't pleased them.
but deep down, i still want my parents to approve of me. so much.

in the past few months i've said and done more things i never would've said or done in front of my parents because i just couldn't hold it in anymore --- things like bullshit and i don't want to talk about this anymore and fuck --- and the world didn't end. they didn't disown me. they didn't even frown disapprovingly. in fact, sometimes they nodded and even laughed. and then i laughed, out of nervous relief and with delight at the realization that my parents and i are finally peers. they respect me. they aren't measuring me by obedience or behavior anymore. they are beginning to see the woman i am, the person i've become --- and they accept her.

since my grandpa died, i've said a few really honest things to my mom i never would've said before. i cried as i said them because i was afraid she wouldn't like it. because i was afraid she wouldn't like me. because as my mom is losing her parents, i'm faced with the truth that i will lose my parents one day. i see the care and honor she's given when they've treated her like shit and taken her for granted. and i don't know if i'm capable of that. and i worry about coming up short for my parents when it matters most. i worry about so many things.

my mom saw my honesty and we reached understanding. she didn't disown me. she didn't even make a subtly disgusted (but sharply pointed) comment. she said she appreciated me explaining what i was feeling and that it made sense to her when she thought about who i was. it was truly a milestone for us; i'm not sure we've ever had such a positive interaction about something so deeply emotional.

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

i'm going to bed early tonight. the wake and funeral are tomorrow,
with a military burial tuesday. i don't know how i will do.
death is strange. it leaves sticky, raw filaments in its wake.

my cookies are done. i've had the first bite.
i daresay they are perfect.

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

are we bursting from the ashes?

all things yearning for the push?

can you hear the ever groaning?

shedding hours we have become?

we are rising suns

we are rising suns

we are rising suns

we are rising suns

lyrics: son lux

rising

{ 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 }

{ i should've known }

this morning i thought, i should've known you weren't done hurting me. that you'd get some more mileage out of this tired broken situation, that you'd throw your jagged weight around a little more, that there was still some momentum in your fists. then it seemed melodramatic. then i thought about how much i've lost at your behest, and it didn't. i thought any power to hurt me had been sapped from your hands, but your sorcery knows no bounds. i don't think i've given you any of the power you've displayed recently. if anything, i've gained considerable ground of my own these past few months. i've relinquished nothing. i can only surmise that you must know you're about to lose me forever and this is your last surge of darkness, your last efforts to embroil me in another half-decade of crippling loss.

as tragic as it would be, i feel the shadowy appeal of that idea --- of the ashes in my throat, the heartless plodding forward, the desperation of a fatal wound, a soul's propulsion off-course, weaving erratically, plummeting downward. i feel the pull of pain. it's compelling. loss is my friend, stumbling around lame has become easy, yearning hopelessly for brighter days is what i know. it's terrible and sick, but in a way i want all that back because it's familiar. i know who i am when i'm hurt, i know where to hide, i know what songs will lull a pinched and shaken mind to sleep.

i don't know who i am right now, i have no fucking idea what to do with this strength. what happens when shit explodes and i accept it and calmly set it aside, patiently ready for the redemption that i've always had to wait and work years to find? what happens when humanity lets me down in the most tragic of ways and i blink silently because, well, that's to be expected, but i'll kindly return to my own enlightment now, thank you very much? what happens when the work of my hands and the legacy of my heart is blasted to nothingness and i stand there weeping until i hear the echoes of industry and formation ringing back to me from an unbelievable, thriving future?

in these moments, the comfortable dark of i might never recover strokes my arms, croons my name, calls me friend. the hard, sure brightness of there are greater things yet for you sounds strident in comparison. i want to lie down, i want to be lost, i want to be held. flinging myself forward, finding my way, and embracing what's ahead sounds like hard work. it sounds exhausting. it sounds like something i'm not sure i can do. i suppose it sounds like the very stuff this tragic rebirth has been preparing me for.

i should've known.

i should've known i would outlive you,

and that these mended bones would be tested.

i should've known i would absorb your force,

that it would increase my strength somehow.

and you should've known

you will never touch me, you cannot reach me,

i'm approaching the top of the stratosphere,

i am higher still, i am shattering barriers as i go.

and the hard, bright diamonds of better days

are cascading, waiting to meet me.

{ τεκτονικός }

do you know what happens when varying atmospheres, extreme temperatures, and contrary energies collide? me neither. well, scientifically i don't understand it, which is why i've just decided to study plate tectonics. as i skimmed the article just now, words jumped out at me, demanding my metaphoric attentions: heat transfer, boundary, surge.

so while i don't understand the technicalities, i'm beginning to understand the effects of plate tectonics on a life. specifically, my life. i guess you could say i'm working backwards: the floor of my world has shifted and i feel the effects (currents, forces, convergence). now i want to explore the cause (gravity, dynamics, reorientation).

and even as it all feels so new to me, i remember that i'm joining a phenomenon that's been occurring since the beginning of time. there's something both uncharted and ancient about it. i've never been so curious about the earth before, or wanted to understand my experiences within the framework of the natural world. i'm emerging from a sheltered place (insulation, hibernation, chrysalis) into a startling awareness of how connected i am to humanity (body of the people) and to the world (body of the world). it's overwhelming, this realization that i am truly not alone, not as a person, not as an organism, not as an existence, a planet, a dream, an idea.




seismic
continental
metamorphosis

{ walk on }

in these heels?

gladly.

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

the late warm breezes of eleven, twelve o' clock, stir something in me i forgot was there. i want to forget it, because it hurts to want things lately, and everything seems so far out of my grasp. sometimes i'm motivated by futility, and sometimes it utterly defeats me. i used to be a get-mad-and-get-even-with-life person; perhaps i've mellowed with age, but disappointment seems to send me further into introspection and withdrawal lately. the world seems to revolve and i am rooted in one place, developmentally and domestically stunted. my life is barely a toddler's age compared to my married, housed, jobbed, grad schooled, be-childrened friends. and while everyone tells me to exercise the freedom that so blessedly comes with such an unattached existence, ultimately this advice rings hollow. because who in her right mind would rather be as alone as i am instead of anchored to a life with someone else that has chosen her?

i'm sure this whiny diatribe reads incredibly immature and myopic, but what else do i know? and it's universally true that what everyone else has or doesn't have always appeals more than our own circumstances. but even that perspective doesn't erase the steady hunger today. i am old(er). i'm past the age where women get excited about going out in stilettos for cosmos at crowded bars with friends. perhaps i need to rediscover my youthful, energetic, domestically ambitious inner goddess. or perhaps i was born with an old soul and have never possessed the dogged determination to remain sparkly-eyed no matter how disappointed i am. everything in me is prodding everything else in me, saying, "make the most of this time in your life, change could come at any moment!" somehow i picture this part of my soul as an irritatingly perky blonde petite person with false eyelashes. and she's wearing a romper.

another part of me is quietly saying, don't you know how brilliant you really are, stop wallowing and just be patient. this is the part of me that looks most like myself. not beautiful, but maybe she is brilliant and that's what truly matters to those who truly matter. but as someone who's always been more attractive on the inside, trust me when i say it only gets more difficult to be overlooked by those who have much more to offer on the outside. what i need is someone with the right kind of vision to finally see me. and even now my inner critic says, you only "need" what you let yourself need...and as long as you "need" someone else, you'll never, ever be in a good place to have him, even if he does exist.

since this reads like the pathetic tear-stained journal of a spinster headed for eternal cat lady land, i'm going to stop. all of this is more for my own purge and processing purposes anyway, and it happens to be spilling like raw diamonds onto this white rectangular plate...

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

if the time has come to abandon everything you've known

to move toward something you can't conceive of

to trust your body in its forward motion despite the reluctance of your mind

to feel the fading light of what was burning on the curve of a shoulder blade

to blink against the gathering breeze of what will be

to shield your heart and shield your eyes

to swallow the unspoken

to sit up in the swells and trust the undertow

to stand at the edge of midnight and morning and decide

to stop and gaze at all the stars

to let the tears run their course

to die, and sleep, and rise again ---

walk on. if you can do it i can

and i'm trusting you all the way.

{ everything and then some }

why would you want to break

a perfectly good heart

{ taylor swift } 

the questions we would ask if only there were time . . .
or if only there were the right time.
but with these kinds of questions, there rarely is,
so throw it to the wind . . .

lately nothing seems to make sense, and while i'm asking myself what else is new? i also feel like it's the right kind of nonsense, the kind of irrationality that leads to the place you're supposed to be, the kind of place you'd never go unless you were made so uncomfortable in what you thought was your safe pasture that there was no choice but to leave...

and even as i say "safe pasture" i realize, there is no safe pasture. some might argue that love is a safe place, and i suppose in some ways, it is. but even love isn't completely safe, for it's all about risk and exposure. perhaps there's a safety for some people in knowing you'll be accepted even once seen. as for me, i think the whole thing is a battlefield, and i don't mean that in the negative way it will come across. it's just that right now "safety" means "complacency" to me, and love is anything but that. love that works, at least.

last night i was so tired that i should've gone to bed, but in the end i found myself driving around town late at night with nowhere really to go. i think i needed to enact on the outside what i've been feeling on the inside for so long but really haven't wanted to acknowledge...that i have nowhere to go. that i don't belong anywhere. that even if i knew where i belonged, i wouldn't have the first idea how to get there.

at some point i turned down a long street of this sleepy town and felt like a one-woman parade...the trees are already lit for Christmas and their branches stood like silent friends curved gently over my passage. i drove slowly then, and imagined that some quiet street in this world is standing ready to receive me. while it's (very) important to me that i find that street eventually, i have to remember that until then there are a million tiny lights hovering over my way, shimmering like an endless avenue of blessing.

she

{ found }

this morning i was attempting to connect speakers to the ancient piece of machinery that serves as a computer for me at work. i didn't see the correct input on the back of the console and wondered if it was indeed so ancient that the connections were different. i frowned at the metal of it all and then realized the OLD speaker jack was still plugged uselessly into the audio input...so it was right there in front of me, but hidden in plain sight from my hasty search.

the funny thing about this is that i got a new monitor (if you can't address the source of the problem, why not dance around it, right?) six weeks ago that, unlike my previous (also ancient) unit, didn't have an audio input. so the speaker jack that was hiding the right input wasn't even doing anything. the other end was simply dangling on the other side of the wall, plugged into nothing.

what really strikes me about this rather inconsequential situation (because even the smallest things in life become big metaphors for me) is that i've done (am doing) this in my life more than i'd care to admit. i'm trying to find a place for things, increase efficiency, and resolve issues lately, and i often feel like i'm spinning my wheels. there's no extra space, everything's too cluttered, and the activity of my efforts only complicates things further.

the thing is...what if the input i'm looking for is right in front of me, but it's already "in use" by something that no longer functions or contributes to my life at all?

those of you that read this don't need any further explication of that realization, so i'm going to leave it at that and hope that this pinpoint of enlightenment might mean as much to one of you as it does to me right now. all peace and strength to you for whatever footfall is next.


she

{ turning around }

a close friend of mine once told me that recovering from something is a lot like being in a rowboat. you sit in the boat facing backward, toward the thing that happened...all the while rowing away from it. i think this metaphor captures the dual nature of recovery perfectly. i don't have a heart that ever really forgets...but i have a heart that forgives. and that's like looking forward and backward at the same time.

normally i'd berate myself for either looking back too much or trying to pretend i'm further past those things than i actually am...and if you're anything like me, you know there's no winning in that.

when the heart breaks
it don't break even
{ the script }

but i'm not doing that this time. i'm done losing to myself. and i think i've reached a turning point in my recovery because i'm feeling things i haven't felt before. i'm uprooting from soil that isn't rich anymore. i'm unfolding wings that have never flown; i can tell because they're extra feathery.

for a long time i've wanted to eradicate all the things that have left their mark on me because i thought they  made me look used and ugly. i often feel like everyone on the street can see right through me to the things i've been rejected for. i carry these things so closely every day, so they just feel so...obvious. and i figure that's why no one wants to keep me...because my faults and shortcomings are so evident. i don't know if i'm ready to accept the truth that the right people will actually find me beautiful despite the things i lack...but i read these words this week and they're helping me to see myself and my marks in a new way.

your scars will become lights
for others. don't hide them.

{ carl lentz }

i think i'm ready to face fully forward. i think i'm getting out of the rowboat. the water is a bit shocking and i feel my legs going numb. but there are trillions of iridescent creatures buoying me up and forward. i wonder at the beauty of the freezing sea and realize it is my own arm making the arctic circle that takes my breath away. i know the journey is long. but somewhere deep i also know that strength will pour from the very wounds i thought would kill me. so i will propel myself steadily toward a sun that never sets...

she

{ concrete jungle }

sunday feet || she

everything is so geometric here, all right angles and isosceles views. for many years the formulaic nature of this place has felt safe, but my wings are growing too large for the cagey structure of my present physical surroundings. i pay too much for one room, and my lemons and nectarines and green grapes take up more than a strict half of the refrigerator. i don't know what i'm going to do, but as you can see, i'm the most colorful thing for miles around, and i'm beginning to feel sorely out of place. it might be time to fly on home, wherever that turns out to be. i'm intent on finding that out, even if it takes me the next twenty years of this mixed-up, uncertain, uphill and beautiful life.

{ to breathe again }

three words: i release you

to hear them or to say them is a liberation.
sometimes i wish letting go didn't come at such a cost.
i think the things that cost the most up front
are also the things that make us the richest in the end.

she

{ je retourne }

i am home but not home, i am whole and entirely broken ---
there is only one explanation for this state of in-between.

there is an echo of your laugh, a remembrance of two whispers
a fullness of joy, an angle of shadow so steep we could never climb it.

what is left but the curve of your face at dusk, a cold nose
in the back of my knee, the frosted pinwheel glass,

the sting of lime on my smiling lips, and the deep
unspeakable comfort of hours with friends.

{ she }