tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32857694922855987972024-03-04T22:49:55.667-08:00A Work In Progressreflections on love, life, people, friends, politics, annoyances, well-intentioned rantsa work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.comBlogger156125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-53196687736798026072017-12-04T18:04:00.001-08:002017-12-04T18:22:14.008-08:00How I *should* be livingWake up! at a decent time. Let's say: 7<br />
<br />
Huh. I already lost interest.<br />
<br />
Well, okay:<br />
Meditate<br />
Walk/exercise/breathe outdoor air<br />
Write<br />
Chores<br />
Remember goals<br />
Accomplish some of those goals<br />
Play & Create<br />
Some form of brain edification<br />
Communicate with the outside world<br />
<br />
Not:<br />
I want to go back to bed.<br />
Okay.<br />
Oooo Gilmore Girls!<br />
<br />
~sigh~a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-34912180111234445002017-12-04T17:32:00.000-08:002017-12-04T17:32:57.171-08:00I write the wittiest thoughts!I do write the wittiest of . . . thoughts. Yes, so often do I blog in my head! Or craft stories! I even find things strung together so beautifully in the middle of a text. How odd that these do not get published or recognized. . .<br />
<br />
When I was a little girl I remember wishing I could write my thoughts onto a sort of ticker tape in my brain that would somehow make it out into the world. That way I would not lose the stories or, rather untimely yet surely hilarious, retorts that passed through my head. But a ticker tape inside my head would be both difficult to implant, run, maintain and somehow print. Would the paper be dispensed through my ear? Would I then need to retype the thoughts?<br />
<br />
But they would not be lost!<br />
<br />
Thus I ramble.<br />
<br />
Often I think of writing things that begin with "How to Stop Sucking in 5 Days or Less" or maybe something with a legitimately positive title. Then I do not pick up a pen in time, or I do not get out my laptop. And if I do the words and thoughts seem to drift away before word or the internet finally open.<br />
<br />
Alas clearly my remaining a non-prolific writer (and most definitely why I am an unpublished one!), is the fault of technology or ink and paper. Yes. Not me.<br />
<br />
Not me.<br />
<br />
Says the girl now bored of her own words. a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-47699463252269234942017-02-15T08:40:00.002-08:002017-02-15T08:40:47.815-08:00not a haiku<div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif" size="3"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I stare out the window</span></font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif" size="3"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I cannot find the moon</span></font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif" size="3"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I see only the distance </span></font></div><div><font color="#000000" face="sans-serif" size="3"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">From me to you.</span></font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light; font-size: 17px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.301961);"><br></div>a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-12859001002095894152016-11-22T00:45:00.000-08:002016-11-22T01:17:25.867-08:00My 2013 One Day Blog: Hammers & Headaches <div>
I find that though my words to respond to things occasionally changes, what I am responding to doesn't change often enough. Yay for so many blogs over the years, I can find my unfortunate patterns! Who knows? Maybe I'll break one. <br />
<br />
The Loveliness of Being: Hammers & Headaches<br />
June 6, 2013<br />
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Have you ever just felt that no matter what you say or do you leave yourself sounding like a fool? Like you get so caught up in your own thoughts that you end up pushing away the people you care about? You don't mean to, but you say stupid things and think crazy thoughts, and lose your place?</div>
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That's what my week has been. Continued disconnects, or misconnects really. Since most of my communication with the world is in writing, that might just make it worse.</div>
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Perhaps my head aches and lack of focus are not helping. My not sleeping and increased pain. The anniversary of my career ending (my tendency towards the dramatic . . .), and of other losses. But none of that is ever an excuse to be mean or misdirect negativity.</div>
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My response to all of this tends to be retreating farther into my thoughts. Throwing more words into the void to fix what I said before. But it's like punching a hole in the wall and trying to fix it with a hammer.</div>
</div>
<br />
<div>
"Hammers & Headaches" & 1.25 other posts, all June 6, 2013<br />
<div>
<a href="https://lovelinessofbeing.wordpress.com/">https://lovelinessofbeing.wordpress.com/</a></div>
</div>
a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-63871521952734095452015-05-22T18:17:00.001-07:002015-05-24T17:48:13.717-07:00Today's "Conscious Challenge" was crazy appropriate (5/23/15)<p dir="ltr">"Watch how you judge yourself Notice the ways you judge yourself. Where did you get those judgments? Who or what decides that you are worthy or not? Observe how judging yourself affects your behavior, your relationships and your life."</p>
<p dir="ltr">It was a hard day. </p>
<p dir="ltr">http://www.consciousday.com/current-challenge</p>
a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-24413607007448054022015-04-12T23:48:00.002-07:002015-04-12T23:54:47.576-07:00"A life lived in chaos is an impossibility . . ."". . . for the artist."<br />
<br />
Madeleine L'Engle wrote, "A life lived in chaos is an impossibility for the artist." Tonight I was flipping through the many tabbed and dog-eared pages of Walking on Water and enjoying notes written in it over the past 10 or so years, when I happened to open to a page lacking in any of those markings yet there at the top was this quote. How strange to find it!<br />
<br />
Strange because I have it written somewhere and every time I see it I find it upsetting. That is until tonight. Oh, the beauty of context and time! Stumbling across it I now see how it makes sense and holds true (I also found that I had left out "for the artist" which is quite key to the purpose of the quote). All the years that I have read it I never wanted it to be true. I have lived in a state of chaos for so long. Clung to the notion that life is a sort of controlled chaos and that since chaos, or at best controlled chaos, is all I know so this cannot be true. For me it is more than a state of being, it is what I am. It is me.<br />
<br />
Controlled chaos is how my high school art teacher described me. During the critique of our final projects, self-portraits, she looked at mine and said that it did very much describe me. That in concept this fractured picture (a painting on the top page cut open in the middle to reveal a layered and messy self on the inside page), and my identity are like a Van Gogh, expressing a controlled chaos. So this quote from my beloved Madeleine L'Engle has always been vexing. If it was true then what I thought was one thing is very much not, the entire concept ultimately misunderstood. And much, much worse, it felt like that means that the fractured girl I presented in my senior year of high school was describing a brokenness that not was not a place to live, yet I still identify with it in my adult-self. And that all of that means that Patty Post's words that were so magical, have turned sad and I am more stunted than before. (That's a lot of power to give to 8 words!)<br />
<br />
Though perhaps I have been wrong. Perhaps it is both a trap and a construct. A prison that I have built for myself. A fairy-tale'd existence in a child's mind that is more Rapunzel's isolating and door-less tower, than the fantastic world I find in Van Gogh's skies or the cobblestoned street of Cafe Terrace at Night. This type of existence is glued together by a belief that within the crazy there is a calm. But there isn't. In the calm there is a calm and in the crazy--in the chaos--there is a beauty of a million moments strung together as twinkle lights and swirling life, but those moments are pieces to the whole. They are not the whole and not all of our moments should live there.<br />
<br />
I flee from the calm for it scares me. Yet I long for it. I must find my way to it. Summon the courage to choose CALM over CHAOS. Even though it is nearly always in motion and there is an ugliness growing as more and more I slip between an uncomfortable edginess with an increasingly upsetting land of exhaustion and disarray, and the cold damp bottom of the well (another story). The ugliness is still what I know and there is a safe-ness in that. However it is becoming much more work to live within it, not the good work. The kind where I am always treading water and losing the hopefulness that I need and that belongs inside me. <br />
<br />
I have been to the calm and I love it there. But it takes a very different sort of work to get and stay. This includes discipline and focus. For me it has to start with the courage to truly move out of the crashing and consuming storm and into the present moment. Tonight I have started to believe that in the calm I may find the energy to create. Through the years and amid the madness that I thought once drove the artist in me, stifles her. I have all but stopped creating. Is it possible that walking out of the storm and into the stillness, will lead me to the home I yearn for?<br />
<br />
I have glimpsed something in the calm, and I am starting the believe that it may be where I can again connect more clearly with my faith, and maybe even find the belief in a future (at all) that I have lost. Maybe I can walk my path in chronos time, yet dwell in kairos experiencing truth and beauty. Believing for myself the joy and hope I believe for others. I think I would like it there.a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-41763068251474841062015-04-10T00:03:00.001-07:002015-04-10T00:04:14.110-07:00circlesI wake up in pain.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I go through the day and find these gorgeous moments surrounded by dysfunctional, mildly paranoid chunks of time. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Then I leave feeling surprisingly okay. Until I melt. Crying and fragile.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The night washes away until finally I'm so tired that I cant even get myself to go to bed.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I love and I dread. </div>
a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-70894202266664489352014-09-10T00:17:00.000-07:002014-09-10T00:56:49.489-07:0022Sometimes I wish I were that part of myself, that other self who never really was. The one who is 22 and sitting on my front porch listening to the waves of cars. Sitting there I'm agitated for probably plenty or no reasons at all. Smoking cigarettes and crushing them out into the cold cement steps until all the shining orange embers disappear. Save for one, because there is always at least one that remains.<br />
<br />
I never actually smoked, hate the smell and taste, but I want for that feel of the cool summer's breeze opposite a stick of burning paper and poison placed between my lips. Not romantically like a 1960s French film--not living my life by the direction of Godard. Not with an air of beautiful crazy. No. Just the gritty, real. Just a bare bones girl in a messed up world existing in close proximity to other messed up people.<br />
<br />
Now in my grown up life where I work my 12 hour days in a job that does not lack in meaning rather in a realistic amount of work for one to do. In that "grown up" office I have a framed quote about how there are no perfect people but essentially only deeply flawed ones who are still worth loving.<br />
<br />
Back on my pre-grown up front porch with rushing traffic on the 5, I spend my nights working in a bookstore, my days (in the somewhat fictionalized self) playing guitar. I'm happy in a bitter, surreal sort of way. I'm the haunting echo of Moon River in the night. Just a little too broken.<br />
<br />
And like the real me, she (me/we) took and take life for granted. Too many meaningless relationships simply to avoid the real ones. Too much philosophy and poetry and abstract art. Too in love to love and illogical to make sensible choices. But she felt. The me who never smoked or had that porch, within that version there's the girl with the reds and the shattering and all the feelings a raging river could ever hold. She felt big. She felt broken and out of place. But she felt. She was the Skin Horse.<br />
<br />
But now I wonder, was sensible best or better?<br />
Would it matter? Now or then?<br />
<br />
Here I sit on this small ledge in my bathroom, feet propped up on the sink, and I see her there. Behind wrinkling skin and tired eyes, the bittersweet girl with an always broken heart, painting, writing, thinking, laughing and crying. And though afraid, she was always a little bit fearless.<br />
<br />
There on that porch or in the small one room apartment with the borax lined walls, she was dreaming of a world she would never find. Not often appreciating what she had. But sometimes. Sometimes she did as she lived in her spectcular moments.<br />
<br />
Work has sucked in many ways, save for lovely moments. But I'm behind. Bullying has started, calls need to be made, everyone needs something now and everything is a top priority. The list goes on, and I'm so I overwhelmed that I want to scream or throw things.<br />
<br />
Then I come home after 12 hours to resume my work here and I talk to my mom, which I never get to enough. And only then do I remember real life.<br />
<br />
Sure what I do is "important" and is way more responsibility than I want to carry. But that work, that is not all there is in my life, or in the other lives in my small corner of the world, and so very far beyond.<br />
<br />
I forget the "now". In the way that we can forget there is a now, time limited, present and finite. Always thinking memories are just happening, but when I am not really living, then I have a sort of snapchat life, it exists momentarily and then it fades. I forget. I forget what I didn't know was even there to remember.<br />
<br />
And I fear the truth, fear the reality of our finite humanity. I fear and I cower. And so I work.<br />
<br />
I find myself thinking of the ever so wise (and allegedly final) words of Simon Bolivar: Damn it! How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?<br />
<br />
Where, or what, ever your labyrinth may be, I think we either need to embrace it as our portion and our lot, or find a way out and maybe just keep going.<br />
<br />
They say, "it's hard to leave--until you leav<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="font-weight: bold;">e</span>. And then it is the <span style="font-weight: bold;">easiest</span> goddamned <span style="font-weight: bold;">thing</span> in the world."</span><br />
<br />
I don't know. I have been a runner (metaphorically) all my life. But as far as I have run, I have wanted to run home for so long, and it is the hardest goddamned thing to do.<br />
<br />
Perhaps I got lost in these words. Perhaps I will close my eyes and become my black and white self. Maybe play some imaginary records, and maybe feel so fearless, and so big that when I wake up in the morning that 22 year old will just take over. But without the cigarettes.<br />
<br />a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-89732270694831067422012-11-16T14:22:00.000-08:002015-05-18T22:46:00.937-07:00Confused / Heart Broken (November, 2012)Today I am sad and angry. I hate God. I am so angry at Him. I don't care if it is rational. I don't care if some people think it's blaspheme. Because the strongest hate means that I am clinging more to Him. He is bigger than my greatest hate & like any good parent or care taker He can wait with me, in this space in between my brokenness and Him. God can let me yell or blame or cry. Let me feel so much anger and target it at Him.<br />
<br />
I am mad at doctors and even the conceptual bigger version of the world. My father-in-law, an amazing, kind, pretty young, and healthy man, passed away this morning. I love him so much. I can't believe this. I cannot. And I cannot believe the pain that Kyle and everyone else who has been lucky enough to know him for so many years, can possibly feel. The impact from his graciousness and being such a role model of patience and peace to me, has changed parts of my heart. And that is just over a few years.<br />
To help me process I have to think of what I and don't know or believe.<br />
<br />
So. I know these things:<br />
<br />
I know life isn't fair.<br />
<br />
I know God didn't cause this.<br />
I know God isn't at fault.<br />
I know that bad things happen to even the most wonderful people<br />
I know that God & the Universe are bigger than a mortal can grasp when seeking reason<br />
I know the 4 themes of existentialism, but not what they mean to me today<br />
I know the 4 agreements by Ruiz, but do not know how to use them now<br />
I know that our hearts are both fragile & strong, but broken <br />
<br />
I don't ...<br />
<br />
I don't believe this is part of God's plan.<br />
I don't really believe He has a plan because I believe in free will.<br />
I don't believe that God looked down at us today & said, "That one. That good & loving man. I'll pluck him out & take him here to me."<br />
I don't believe that he's (my father-in-law) watching over us right now. Or I don't know about it.<br />
I don't believe things always work out for the best.<br />
<br />
I do ... <br />
I <i><b>do</b></i> believe in love<br />
I <b><i>do</i></b> believe in grace<br />
I <b><i>do</i></b> believe in freedom - of emotions, of choice, of forgiveness, of self<br />
I <b><i>do</i></b> believe in healing - though not completely because I think some shards will always remain<br />
I <i><b>do</b></i> believe in support<br />
I <i><b>do</b></i> believe in the power of baking<br />
I <b><i>do</i></b> believe in commitment<br />
I <b><i>do</i></b> believe in grieving together<br />
<br />
I mentioned a bit of this above but I am mad at the bible too.<br />
<br />
I think the letter to the Exiles in Jeremiah 29:11-14 isn't about having some concrete plan, or about things always working out for the <b>best</b>. I do not want to hear that this is part of God's plan or that my father-in-law is in a better place. This was where he was supposed to be still - HERE on earth.<br />
<br />
Grief is blinding. Grief is wounding. Grief pulls you into yourself and out of the real world. Grief embraces darkness. Grief strikes out against all joy and hope.<br />
<br />
And that is what I feel, the strangling arms of grief constricting me - my heart, my body, my hope.<br />
<br />
The counselor in me says that grief can be processed. That I should trust the process. That Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was right. That THIS is part of the process. This crying & denial & anger. But words of comfort will fall on deaf ears for many days - especially today. And yet I am sure they will come from my lips too. Because we want to love on each other. We want to support. And it is hard to do. <br />
<br />
Grief is not meant to be tolerated alone. Otherwise the strength that can be saved from it will be overshadowed by the darkness inside it.
Tonight I will try, so desperately, to wear the mask of a strong & supportive wife, family member & friend. I will awaken the ability to be calm in crisis. To be the person who though part of the family, I can try to be outside enough to recognize the needs of others. That I can come in and act on things. Help, hug, DO.<br />
<br />
Because that is the role I am best at. That is who I want to be. Until I am alone, then I can return to being broken. Of course I won't pretend to be okay, or as if this has not affected me to my bones, but I will try to summon the strength. I will use my favorite quotes to propel me forward, to be stilts raising me up & keeping me above the rising pools of sorrow. The words like, "Keep calm & Carry on", and "Life is not what it's supposed to be. It's what it is. How you cope with it is what makes a difference" and Frankl, Barrie, Salinger, Austen and Green. Words to carry me through & help me HELP them.<br />
<br />
Okay, about that verse.<br />
Jeremiah 29:11 'For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.[b] I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”<br />
<br />
I have many a sentiment on this. But I also have other things to do.<br />
<br />
If you read this, thank you. Writing it was really helpful. That and lorazepam.<br />
<br />
I love you my friends and family. My life is blessed by having you in it. a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-30312369811733178642011-06-23T09:08:00.000-07:002011-06-23T09:12:41.122-07:00Things I Forgot This Morning . . .Lately I have a hard time remembering things. The sort of things you should not forget. And it happened again this morning . . . <br /><br />Now today it is more understandable that I should forget because at 7:30 I was coming back from an hour at the gym and had not (still have not at 9:09am) gone to sleep yet. Nonetheless this is an odd and recurring problem. I . . . <br /><br />I keep forgetting what season it is. Like what month we are in. I think it is fall, but then realize no, that's not it. Sometimes I will think it's winter. Also no. Spring? No. Oooohhhhh. Summer. It is June. Right. June. <br /><br />How do you disconnect from what month it is?! I blame unemployment. <br /><br />Sadly when I realized that I have forgotten this I thought about the fact that I had forgotten a lot of things lately, but now I cannot remember what they were. <br /><br />I think I need to get some sleep . . .a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-88751858916871154022011-06-22T14:03:00.001-07:002011-06-23T01:11:32.012-07:00The Top 8 Benefits of Depression: See! There's (almost) Always A Bright SideOnce the pathetic self-pity began to lift (okay, as it is <span style="font-style:italic;">beginning</span> to lift) I have tried to gain some (not really) perspective & find the, er, close-to bright side of it all. That is to say that I have found some of the the perks of being pathetic & depressed. <br /><br />My Top 8 Are Below (not in any particular order): <br /><br />1. You get to see more sunrises. (on account of the insomnia)<br /><br />2. You get a little high school summer-time flashback by sleeping until 11 or 12! (on account of the awake 'til sunrise 5 nights in a row)<br /><br />3. Weight loss! I have lost at least 4 pounds in less than a week. Even if when I do eat it is primarily crap (sans Kyle making me eat real dinners most nights), I hardly eat at all - so that is a TOTAL plus. <span style="font-style:italic;">(granted I am just storing fat & losing muscle, but I have <span style="font-weight:bold;"><span style="font-style:italic;">SO</span></span> little muscle to lose that it has to be some of the chubbiness falling off -- so says my jeans at least)</span><br /><br />4. You catch up on your "stories" - even if they are complete seasons of shows that you have watched over & over, it's okay! Now you can pick up on ALL the nuances you missed the first (second, or third) time(s) around!<br /><br />5. You really catch up on facebook. Because there is not really enough of that in the average day, this way you can seem like the crazy status post-er that you always aspired to be. <br /><br />6. (and this one is important) You renew your love for music from your youth, like listening to The Cure, Depeche Mode, & Morrisey. <br /><br />7. You have more time to devote to your obsession with Nathan Fillion (or insert the name of your favorite actor). <br /><br />8. You improve the healthiness of your skin & hair because you stop putting on make-up or styling your hair with product, blow drying & a straightener. (who needs that stuff when depressed? No one. It is really oxy moronic to be truly pathetic & depressed AND look nice. I guess if you're leaving the house you can smack on some lipstick, but really isn't nearly 20 years of making an effort to prettify before leaving the house enough?) <br /><br />There are probably more, but all this cheeriness is really exhausting. I should save something to do at 3am. <br /><br />:)<br /><br /><br /><br />**Like the Phoenix I'll rise again! Wait, I don't want to do that. The damn bird has to burn to death first! Although he has the whole rebirth, renewal, immortality thing going, so that's cool.**a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-78408093159883570712011-06-12T14:58:00.000-07:002011-06-12T14:59:13.245-07:00Lost & Found In StoryI am a lover of words. A keeper of stories. I believe we all have at least one to tell.<br /><br />I sometimes wish I could live inside the stories of others, inhale their words & slip away, far from me & this landscape I often feel swallowed up in.<br /><br />I’ve been lonely for much of my life, although not alone. At one point when I was nearly as alone as I was lonely, I found myself saying that it is okay to not have many friends; I have my best friend, and when that is not enough, I have Jane Austen and her stories.<br /><br />See I am not a great or terribly well-read reader, but I know that books and stories are faithful friends and that you can, “put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back” (John Green). When you become both lonely and alone you learn that the words whispered onto the pages of books can be your life-line, not just to another world but even to your own.<br /><br />When the walls are unscalable. When I am down to just one last string. When I need something to hold on to; something not human that will not so easily decay; I need something to hold the innermost parts of me together with the rest of the world – I know then that I need the secrets, loves, pains, joys and adventures of others. I need the “something” that exists in stories.a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-63326417510803977192011-02-11T11:06:00.000-08:002011-02-11T11:29:00.040-08:00My New but Not Replacement BlogI have created a new blog that does NOT replace this one, for it has a totally different purpose. It is an introduction to My Army of Imaginary Friends. <br /><br />It can be found at: It can be found at: <br />http://myarmyofimaginaryfriends.weebly.com/index.html<br />(sorry my blog won't let me post this as a link. bad blogger! bad!)<br /><br /><br />Here is my post that explains what it is: <br /><br />I have decided, well, a lot of things, but for the purposes of this page we will start with my decision to create: My Army of Imaginary Friends. MAOIF is going to be awesome. If I were the sort to use this word, and I have only ever used it as a mock or joke before, but if I WERE the sort I would say: MAOIF will be epic! It will be legendary. In fact, wait . . . I just started to build it (in my head) and it IS already awesome. <br /><br />The thing about it though is that my super cool and freakishly awesome imaginary friends are "real" people, but since I don't actually know most of them, they're only "imaginary" friends. <br /><br />This Army is created primarily of people who I think would:<br /><br />1. Totally get my sense of humor (it's my army, so it starts with my needs)<br /><br />2. Be so hilarious that they would stop all non-hilarious and sad or tragic things in the world just by their mere existence <br /><br />3. Definitely be able to combine their awesome, to produce the first Puppy-Sized Elephant. <br /><br />YOU may be in my army and just not know it. I am accepting recommendations for members. Currently there are only like 10 so I have some room. <br /><br />And now I'll go back to my currently über uncool life to study. <br /><br /><br />That's it! I am introducing new, or already existing and just not listed/named members when I can. Currently I have listed 4 but in only 3 announcements (posts).a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-44140415477900512702011-02-05T15:22:00.000-08:002011-02-05T16:06:06.821-08:00Schroedinger's Cat & My (hopeful) Completion of Grad SchoolIf you aren't familiar with Schroedinger's Cat (SC) I will post some links, and/or you can bear with me through a weak description of it: <br /><br />Schroedinger was a physicist, his theory was that something has a singular outcome IF it is observable, if it is not then it could have more than one outcome at the same time. His theory involved putting a cat in a box along with some radioactive material, and a device for detecting radiation. The device was designed to, if it sensed the decay of the radioactive material, trigger a hammer which was poised to break a flask containing hydrocyanic acid, which, when released, would kill the cat. His theory postulated that since you cannot see the cat, and cannot know if the device has triggered the hammer, the cat is both alive AND dead at the same time. (Most of this information is not my own, but taken from: http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/quantum-suicide4.htm).<br /><br />What this has to do with grad school: <br /><br />The SC thought experiment came to be because of a controversy between two theories in quantum mechanics. The first is the idea (Copenhagen Interpretation) that an object can exist in multiple states at once, that is until it is observed at which point it HAS to choose one probability - one outcome. The second theory (The Many-Worlds Theory) is the idea that it can continue to exist in multiple states and the universe will just split things into many parts to accommodate all possible outcomes.<br /><br />This is like my current academic, educational, life, big picture, situation. The cat is either dead or alive (one outcome), but until it is observed it is both. My career & the purpose of (insert obscene $ figure) money I spent on grad school, all the stress, friendships, bad & good things, sacrifices, and crazy AND potential for success are <span style="font-weight:bold;">in the box</span>. <br /><br />Being behind on my thesis, having issues at my internship, not having a video clip that is any good, or being prepared for my licensing exam on Monday, & whether or not (on account of all of those things) I will actually get my MA in April is the possibility of my Cat being dead. My deepest fear (in this) is that my cat is dead, that it was a mistake and will not pay off and I will fail - even if I do get my degree. <br /><br />BUT there is a possibility that my Cat is alive, has purpose and will end up being worthwhile (not worth the debt necessarily) but the correct pursuit of a dream. <br /><br />In discussing SC with my friend, she asked why we wouldn't just make the box see- through, because it's so frustrating not knowing if the cat is dead or alive why torment ourselves when we could just look? I told her that for me I don't want to see inside the box. Well I sort of do, but since I REALLY hope my cat isn't dead, even though it often feels like it is, I want it dark, sealed and unknown. Even if that means not knowing if my cat is alive. <br /><br />How do I help my cat stay alive? Where is my confidence? Is this just my crazy running out of control? <br /><br />Part of me wants to say: I am GOOD at this. I must be good at some of it. However the dark cloud I feel in my gut is gnawing away at my confidence and faith. But the fact that there is something remaining for it to gnaw at is hopeful, because it means my cat may still be alive. <br /><br />In my heart, I love it, I do. I want to be amazing at school counseling. I want to be the best possible counselor. I have so much to learn that it terrifies me that I won't learn enough to be successful. But I hit wall after wall. I feel stuck. And this may be why. This prime example of my negativity. The pool in which I currently swim. I MUST GET OUT OF THE POOL. <br /><br />I teeter between what is my being realistic, and what is my being borderline & histrionic? What is an area I can grow in, and what is something I am just not cut out for. That's the point though right? The whole experiment of Schroedinger's Cat. We won't know until we open the box, and really instead of speculating I might as well act as if the damn cat is alive!a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-28814581617121715162010-11-11T11:34:00.000-08:002010-11-13T10:36:08.384-08:00Existentialism & the End of a FriendshipRecently a relationship in my life has changed; I tried to prevent this from changing, specifically for the past 2 months, but in my heart have known for some time that it has being transforming from the healthy and constructive relationship that it once was to something else. Focusing on the last two months though, I had been torn between a) the pain brought on by hurt, sadness, and the selfishness of another, and b) the knowledge that confronting the person who caused a. would end an important friendship. I had hoped that I could overcome or ignore a. and prevent b., I hoped that time would pass and I would be okay with the damages, or at least accept them and let life do what it would. <br /><br />A wise woman told me that as life ran its course in this relationship, space, distance and reality would bring an organic ending or healing (she assumed ending, she was both wise and correct, though I had hoped for the latter), and that I did not need to force outcomes. <br /><br />Considering that it felt like, still does truly, there was a complete lack of awareness from a.’s executor (hence forth called “x.”), the ripples set out by x.’s actions (resulting in a.) were continuing to expand inside my brain and heart. I was having a hard time balancing between the choice of managing the size of a. within me to attempt the prevention of b. (which was unthinkable to endure), to risking b. by confronting x. <br /><br />And then it happened. I failed at preventing b., actually that is incorrect, I failed to maintain the size of a. within me, perhaps because it is unreasonable, and vain, to think one could prevent what felt like the inevitable just because they don’t want it to be true. And once a. was out, once some of it was said to x. there was no going back. Initially x. seemed aware (which was a happy surprise) and apologized (for a moment at least) and I thought that b. would not happen. I was elated! I had been wrong, despite the failed efforts in the past for me to be heard by x. regarding things that x. did not like or want to hear, and my feelings of impotence in an important relationship because I often feared b. thus not risking telling x. important things (previous to this current situation that brought about a.), and despite my fears of stone-walling or defensiveness, I had clearly been wrong and assuming the worst of a friend I loved so much; all along x. had been aware! But that was also incorrect. No sooner said (an apology) than was it rescinded. Shaking from hurt, frustration and anger, no longer just at me because a. had to get out as it was eating away at so much space in my heart and brain, but angry that it was true. That friendship was limited by x.’s capacity to see beyond x. My thoughts that years of friendship could outweigh how x. and my friendship have transformed within the past, were futile. X. decided, in less than the time that it was taking me to process these messages (less than 24 hours that is) - that had fluctuated from apology, to taking it back, to sincerity, to confrontation - that the whole friendship should end – without trying. X. even blamed me for much of it. <br /><br />Following this crushing, if even someone expected experience, I was unsure where to go. In times of trial would I not usually talk to x.? Thus in my “now what” stage I feel that it may be best to evaluate this situation in the context of the four existential givens. <br /><br />Beginning with this question: Is the inevitable simply inevitable? Yes and no, because that solely supports the concept of determinism, and, existentially speaking, I believe that destiny exists. If destiny does exist than we are not totally free, because of the concept of thrownness (that some basic conditions of the world are beyond our control) perhaps there was corruption to this process, or experience. This might make sense in a minute.<br /><br />The four givens (basic truths about existence) and their application (my interpretation) of them to this experience: <br /><br />Existential Given #1: Freedom, Responsibility, and Agency <br /><br />This is complicated and it is very hard for me to articulate but in short, I was allowing myself to be a product of my biology, unconscious, and environment; allowing my fears to prevent my living authentically. To be free, responsible and not live in a passive state, I must try to exercise my will. I am responsible for my efforts to control b., but not for the actions of x. Just as I was not responsible for the egregious behaviors of x. that led to a., I could not prevent x. from making x.’s choices. I concur with the philosophy that people make decisions based on their own interpretation of meaning, and I assigned specific meaning to b., which was rooted in an awareness of the risk of feelings of despair, loss, and sadness if a. was expressed. But those are parts of a human prison, because freedom is not external, being controlled by this fear was only creating a more painful end. <br /><br />Existential Given #2: Death, Human Limitation, & Finiteness<br /><br />In this case this is a symbolic death. Yalom (existentialist) argues that there are “two ways of denying death: 1) the ultimate rescuer and 2) specialness. Both are tied to the heroic. With the ultimate rescuer, the heroic is an external hero while in the conception of specialness, the hero is internal.” I wanted to prevent the death of this friendship (i.e., b.) so I thought (unconsciously) keeping a. to myself was somehow heroic, like there was a specialness to preserve and I was good for trying. I do believe that there was a specialness, but I also believe that all things (in this case relationships) are finite, I was just hoping that it was finite in terms of physical death, that it would endure within the boundaries of my human life, not end within this year. It’s an understandable hope, because man is an irrational creature, but not accepting limitations such as those within this relationship was not heroic, it was a form of denial. <br /><br />Existential Given #3: Isolation and Connectedness<br /><br />For my purposes here I will consider the concepts of interpersonal relationships, and (a very limited understand and application of) the concept of I-Thou / I-It relationships. I firmly believe that we were made to be in relationship with others, that we need others to survive. Interpersonal isolation is a “way of being in relationships” that are “not satisfying relational needs.” A refusal to accept that there is a limit to this human relationship, put me at risk of a “neurotic, dependent, and symbiotic relational pattern” that prevented me from growing in my ability to relate on a deeper level. Perhaps I was moving from the I-Thou genuine relationship, with all of its mutual risks, to an I-It relationship. When “relationships are reduced to effective communication and management I-It), something precious is lost.” Because of my fear of that loss -of rejection and hurt to both myself and x. - I would not accept the reality of isolation, even at the cost of authentic connectedness. <br /><br />Existential Given #4: Meaning vs. Meaninglessness<br /><br />“An essential assumption of the existential theorists is that people are meaning seeking creatures. It is meaning that can make existence bearable. Conversely, the lack of meaning is one of the greatest existential terrors. Becker (1973) said it well: "Man cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level" (p. 196).”<br />There are three types of meaning, false, transitory, and ultimate. Recently I (unintentionally) employed transitory into my relationship with x. Because I believe in growth and friendship, and that we, as humans, are both meaning seeking and meaning creating creatures, I thought that this was in the pursuit of an ultimate meaningful relationship. However following many occurrences of the past year, specifically of recent events, I was, without realizing it, living inauthentically, and irresponsibly, consequently preventing any true meaning. Thus allowing my relationship with x. to have false meaning. Allowing the development of an increasingly destructive relationship (internally for me if nothing else) I moved to create a negative transitory meaning that prevented growth or the fostering of an authentic relationship. Transitory became coping. And from an existential perspective, “merely surviving or coping is not really living.”<br /><br />These existential givens were mostly lived out unconsciously. While I intentionally kept a. to myself because I feared b., I unintentionally constructed a new narrative that could not have anything but a destructive meaning. I did not know how to cope, so I stopped living. <br /><br />Relationships need to be shared, and I did not feel any sharing from x., which I interpreted from a lack of awareness, and thus limited my own sharing. I still feel much of that (x. not being aware or taking responsibility) is true, but I can only trust that it is my interpretation of x.’s feelings, because I believe that truth, such as this, is subjective because objectivity is always suspect. I’ve read that a belief in objective truth is a belief that “bias has been contained, bracketed, or eliminated.” <br /><br />In the opinions of others, some who have shared them without my asking - people who witnessed the events that led to a., not who have only heard my side - in their (as much as possible) objective opinions more than validate a.<br /><br />I have been unable to respond to x.’s final message. My husband thinks that perhaps that is best, that all of x.’s words are out into the universe and maybe that’s enough. I am unsure. I have been afraid to say anything, publically or really privately, like there is a necessary mourning period and expressing happiness or being ‘okay’ somehow undermines the meaning of my previous relationship with x. Nonetheless with the quickness in x.’s decision to end our relationship (although I want to believe there was a significant internal struggle) it may be self-centered to think that it matters to x. what I put out there. That not wanting to hurt x. is an unnecessary concern, because x. did not mind hurting me – in causing a. or allowing b.<br /><br />I used to say, mostly jokingly, not to cross a writer because they’ll immortalize you. I feel that despite my best intentions in keeping a. to myself, that x. (who is a writer) has interpreted it as a personal affront and for whatever reason (of which I hold many, primarily rooted in hurt opinions of) seems to have let this go quite easily, even made it a positive part of their current life experience. Making me a negative, when I know I am not. <br /><br />All of this supports the theory that b. is, all in all and ultimately, the best outcome - but how can that be felt lightly? I cannot help but feel terribly wounded by all of this, and my response can only be to write this, an evaluative (while still emotionally directed) view of recent happenings. Hoping that I can find some solace or ending to the numb feeling that remains within me. <br /><br />I desire freedom from this existential angst. With the removal of the object of fear (fear has to have an object, in this case b.), angst should not continue, it “has no such "constructive" measure” upon which to hang. It remains my own “nondirectional emotion” that I need to let go of. It is an act of living as a free agent that I can responsibly let this go, knowing that the consequences of my actions only went so far (are what they are), and the consequences of x.’s are beyond my control, and are x.’s own responsibility. <br /><br />In the words of Jean-Paul Sartre, “Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.”a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-89994961309417294962010-10-16T14:50:00.000-07:002010-10-16T14:52:08.609-07:00oh man, i'm depressing!i just looked at my last few posts. honestly until this incident i had not felt like quitting for 2 weeks - which is total progress. seriously, two whole weeks! i was accepting errors, moving forward, doing okay, still had crappy moments but wasn't all pathetic about them. i guess i am more likely to write about the bad feelings than the good.<br /><br />when i get that feeling in my gut that i am screwing up i am compelled to write. when i feel good i think, "oh i should write" but move right along with doing something else.<br /><br />i will make the effort to write some of the good things - especially on my other blog about being an intern. it isn't too inspiring to new interns to see that things for me suck.a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-79248306630508195142010-10-16T14:34:00.001-07:002010-10-16T14:46:34.465-07:00rejection / failureI got an email from a 1st/2nd grade teacher about how counseling class, that I teach alone, has a negative impact on her students & how incredibly unhappy she is. I feel stupid & like I suck. Teachers don't like that they have me instead of my supervisor, like it isn't fair that they get the "intern" & not the "real" counselor. It was a class that ended with 3 boys crying & fighting - I should have gone to the teacher to report it & get guidance, but I didn't. They weren't crying by the end of our meeting after. But apparently two other kids cried later. What the heck did I do???<br /><br />I know these are life lessons, but I feel like I failed. I hate failing and making mistakes, like I should naturally be able to do it all well. I know I am new at this and haven't worked with little kids in 14 years and never as a teacher, but I thought it was going okay, sans the crying children . . . but 6 & 7 year olds cry when they say mean things to each other. Well, 32 year olds cry when they feel like they did something wrong . . .<br /><br />But there really is this air of annoyance that they get me instead of my supervisor. I hate that. Like I suck just because I am not already licensed. They seem to forget that there is a time when they were in training too. But I hate that my supervisor will talk to the teacher without me because I am not there on Mondays & that makes me feel awkward.<br /><br />I put all of this pressure on myself, like I represent me, my supervisor and my school and so when I screw up it reflects poorly on everything. Which I realize is a little self-aggrandizing. And on most levels I know that I am over-reacting but it is my first big incident & it comes from the scariest teacher at the school. She is amazing with little kids but REALLY intimidating. I am afraid that I will cry when we all meet, or even just my supervisor and I meet.<br /><br />So my ultimate over-reaction? I should just quit & accept failure. Because THAT'S the best choice.<br /><br />I went to that bad place. The one where I think, OH MY GOD I should have stayed in the couples, marriage & family counseling program. OH MY GOD how much debt will I be in to become something I am bad at???<br /><br />These are the times when I am supposed to remember why I have the words "It Is" literally tattooed on my skin. It is for two reasons, one being the theory that life is what it is, and what matters is what we do with it. Like the platitude, "this too shall pass", the idea is that some things are out of control, even the responses to things that were in our control, and as scary as it may feel, the situation will pass. (Although as a side note, I kind of think that teaching 1st & 2nd graders may sometimes involve kid's behavior that is a little out of my control) And that before it does pass, all I can do is make the choice to deal with it, be humbled and accept what has happened, and whatever consequences befall on me. OR to make the choice of running and hiding, or simply quitting.<br /><br />I am supposed to go to a festival at the school today, I don't want to because I will have to see the teacher and my supervisor and I feel ashamed and weak. And I REALLY don't fit in at this school, so it feels awkward. You are expected to come for the whole thing, bond and share in cider and a harvest dinner. I want to stop by, see some kids, have some cider and leave.<br /><br />Exactly when will I develop social skills to interact with other grown ups? Does that come in my mid-30s?a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-89824881938076436372010-09-28T17:20:00.001-07:002015-05-18T23:28:47.767-07:00"too much" but not "overwhelmed" (09/2010)As he left today my supervisor asked if I felt overwhelmed. I said no, that I had in the morning but that I felt better now. Which was true, but that is different than feeling okay. How do I verbalize that it isn't that I feel overwhelmed, rather, I feel disappointed. I'm disappointed in myself, in my inability to do what I should be able to do. In my frustration. In my desire to cry after things go wrong. In how apathetic or boring I must seem because I don't express emotion or response. How inadequate I feel and not to mention the part of me that is comparing myself to other-intern who I feel is probably perfect and bubbly. <br />
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Some days I just feel like I'm not good enough. Like I made a bad choice. A mistake. A really, really expensive mistake.a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-34910332231189216662010-09-25T01:03:00.000-07:002010-09-25T01:04:25.053-07:00"disclaimer from a since moved blog-posting"**Disclaimer - stories regarding events of childhood - and even their potential or actual impact on adulthood are not intended to drag the name of perfectly fine adults through some proverbial mud. I do not hold ill will to people or behaviors from childhood, but our actions influence who we grow up to be. I believe our experiences, our stories, impact who we are - but so does conscious choices. What we do with them, those experiences, is what matters now and next. Negative, positive, or mixed, they are pieces of a larger picture and ultimately it's like a a mosaic.*a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-57695155405019048922010-09-08T17:48:00.000-07:002015-05-18T23:09:50.763-07:00Tales from an Insecure Intern (09/2010)Week 1, Day 1: I actually forgot where my husband works. I lost my grasp on the English language. a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-34748586453286035722010-09-03T16:40:00.000-07:002010-09-03T18:17:05.330-07:00You Became Who You AreOnce upon a time I was a free spirit. I loved and I hurt with passion. My world was saturated with color. It was both dramatic and serene, and when I felt it was with all of me, or as much of me as I knew how to give. Then things changed; age, depression, heartbreak. Choices had consequences that led to a desire for a more sustainable and traditional stability, which for me meant sacrificing art and beauty. It didn't have to mean that, but part of feeling with all of you can mean living in a polarized world. <br /><br />It was the start of 2000 and after I stopped self-medicating with dancing and drinking; I had to figure out what it meant to not be fragmented and what that might have to do with growing up. I put some of that colorfulness away because it didn’t feel safe for me, it bled into the fringes – which was a place I knew and lived but where I couldn't survive. Learning to do that, without really learning how to do the work, was complicated, painful and incomplete. <br /><br />In 2001 I started taking medication. Unfortunately I let what you hear happens with medication happen to me. I stopped writing and painting. My polarized world became more polarized. And life went on and I lived and loved and traveled. I saw and felt beautiful things. But I developed inhibitions and walls. And the walls grew and grew like a castle fortress. <br /><br />Some 9 years have passed. Three careers, 1 divorce, a different state, and a new marriage later, I am taking stock. Towards the end of my first marriage my husband had often told me that I was not the woman he married. He had married an artist and I was not an artist. I know now what he meant, but I don’t think he did really. I had new art, new passions, but less me. At the time I was still writing, not often though and without his notice, but it didn't really matter because I wasn’t really living. It wasn’t that I had just stopped creating but something inside me seemed to stop, it was missing – the me that he had loved because of the passion and free spirit seemed to be gone. And when we separated I told myself that wasn't going to be the case anymore, because I would do what I had always longed to do. I would travel. Live with abundance. Move to the Dominican and be - just BE. <br /><br />But I didn't. Instead I did the work. The work that I should have started in 2000 I started in December of 2006. I have worked hard but remain a work in progress. <br /><br />Today I saw Eat, Pray, Love with some girlfriends and thought that a version of that life, with the self discovery and travel, is the life I always wanted and in some ways still do. I want to live with less fear. I want to LIVE. But I saw something different. I used to think that I could only live that life while single, that if I wanted to travel or move somewhere across the world that it had to be just me. But it doesn't. Dreams can be shared and loved and lived together. Dreams can adapt, they don’t have to end.<br /><br />Do I think we are going to move away? Maybe not. Am I open again to the idea of looking outside of my comfort zone - my white suburban SW Portland life? Yes. This girl who came to be, she is who I am meant to be - but not all of her. Life is not for this timidity. Life is for abundance and surrender. It is not for fortress walls and brokenness and TV shows and 15 facebook posts in a day; it is for sharing, loving, laughing and being. All things can cross over and in between, but it is bigger than what I have accepted.<br /><br />I received a written prescription from the doctor yesterday that read: Make your own schedule a priority. "Own" was underlined three times. And that is what I need to do. The other informal prescription was to meditate. I meditated last year and I started to feel a peace. Before then there were a handful of times that this had happened and all were in artificial settings. Wonderful, but artificial in that they were not where I lived. It was Yosemite, or on a frozen lake, a rolling river, nature - places where God is easier to breathe in. But peace right in the context of my own life? I didn't know how that could really be. <br /><br />All true peace must come from within; it is just easier to find when you are not in your day to day or it is simply hard to feel while in the city, because there, I guess I mean here, you have to work harder for it. You, me, we are in chaos, so it involves carving a space in your real life to make it happen.<br /><br />For a class last year we had to create mandalas. A mandala is many things; it can be an artistic representation of the cosmos, like a focus for meditation. Ours was sort of that, but also about defining our self and our spirits. I chose a music box and painted it, glued poems and quotes by L’Engle and Wordsworth, passages from the Book of Counted Sorrows and on the top this poem that I wrote:<br /><br />My soul speaks loudly.<br />Then silently.<br />The ancient words of God;<br />They are worn into the grooves.<br />Worked by the hands of my ancestors.<br /><br />I think that is true. And it is speaking now. I hear the ancient words because they are worn into the grooves of my soul, woven into my very existence and reality. They say that as long as I am breathing, it is never too late to live.a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-48363140225331760982010-08-16T19:04:00.000-07:002010-08-16T19:16:30.437-07:00BrokennessI was just thinking about brokenness. I thought of it the other day and then again tonight as I was watching tv. It was a big episode and following significant changes in these characters lives. Of course set to Jeff Buckley most things sound dramatic and feel depressing, but it was interesting. It was interesting and sad. Not sad because of the tv show, but because of the feeling of brokenness; the expression worn on the face of a shattered heart. <br /><br />What I was thinking is that I no longer know what to make of it. It has been a long time since I saw things in a remotely black and white way, but I still had an outline. I still had an idea of God and humanity fixed somewhere deep inside me. Something that, sensible, logical or not, was real. I don't think I have that anymore. <br /><br />I have felt broken in the past. I have been broken in the past. And even at those times I had something deeper to believe in, something that held the big things together - or that I knew caught the big pieces as they fell through the proverbial sky. Now I don't know. I don't know what I believe in. I don't know if I believe in anything discernible. I believe in the existence of God and I know that inside I still have a love for Christ, but I don't feel anymore. What bothers me is there is no existential/spiritual crisis. It is like one day it had all drifted away and my heart and soul were silent. They aren't void and absent or aching, they are just silent. <br /><br />Being cognizant of this, essentially having come into awareness of these feelings that developed quietly over time - has awakened something. It is something I cannot really explain. Is it fear? Is it contentment with the unknown? Or solemness with having lost something without feeling loss? <br /><br />I don't know. I miss being in want of God. But I don't miss it enough to fight for it.a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-18357725306906013242010-08-07T00:15:00.000-07:002010-08-07T00:17:23.221-07:00Pop!All around the mulberry bush<br />The monkey chased the weasel.<br />The monkey thought 'twas all in fun.<br />Pop! goes the weasel.<br /><br /><br />I feel like the weasel. In SO very many ways. Pop! Most of them are too pathetic to post.a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-17660086182575806262010-08-06T23:36:00.000-07:002010-08-06T23:50:23.277-07:00Scars"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.<br /><br />"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." <br /><br />I had just read this excerpt from the Velveteen Rabbit earlier this week, and then I heard it tonight in my friend's wedding. I take it in a slightly different manner than the pastor intended, but it is the same basic idea. To be "real" - whatever that means to you - hurts, but is worth it. Some times though, it doesn't feel like that. It feels like I am done feeling. Like I would rather have my eyes in my sockets, and ears that don't flop quite so much, and to live on a shelf, untouched, with my un-mussed fur and well tied bow. But that isn't reality, and that isn't how we want to be or live. Not usually.<br /><br />Aren't we all the velveteen rabbit in one way or another? Don't we all have some good scars from being real, but also some bad ones? <br /><br />My best friend just published her second book (HIGHLY recommend it: Magical Shrinking: Stumbling Through Bipolar Disorder, www.christianewells.com)and on her blog she posts about an experience of working with a girl who is a cutter and recognizing so many things in that moment, and connecting to how she herself was one years ago. She writes this line about what happened following a girl asking her if she was a cutter, noting the most visible scar, a vertical one that runs up her wrist:<br /><br />"I said yes, and we sat in silence, looking at our scars." <br /><br />I am too tired to really write, and too emotionally spent from a messed up day - full of my pettiness and over sensitivity, and elements of fiction blurring the truth, because both make me hurt and one rubs in the pain of the other - and now my head is full and I need to slow my thoughts or (preferably) put them in a drawer and try to rest. <br /><br />I miss blogging, maybe getting it out, out into a space where I am pretty sure it is no longer read, but it is out there, some where, is helpful. It eases some of the loneliness, to think of common connections. <br /><br />Oh that sounded dramatic.a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3285769492285598797.post-51881400626112553372010-04-07T21:30:00.000-07:002010-04-14T12:29:39.379-07:00just not doing anything i should betime seems to stop yet pass quickly. the hours run and run and my activities stand still. my doctor said that she doesn't understand how i can be disorganized and yet say that my new medication is helping me be focused. i tried to explain that my brain isn't disorganized - my life is. my life is disorganized. i have a theory that, well is correct, that if i could just get my house clean then i could get everything, or <span style="font-style:italic;">some</span> things done. which i currently don't do. i have so much homework, and cleaning, and people to call, and emails to write. yet i just sit. i write to my colleague about a client who gets so overwhelmed that she can't do anything and i think that it is amazing that i am emailing her at all since i am too much like that client. and unfortunately that client knows. what is she some sort of see-er? (hazard of watching Angel)<br /><br />anyway. a whole day wasted minus an oddly hopeful meeting with my boss. which i almost started crying. thank god for calming techniques ACTUALLY working for once. <br /><br /><br />wow, i'm DREARY.a work in progresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07564875370535681052noreply@blogger.com0