Life and Love and Why

        Lately, as my life becomes more and more complicated I am more and more overwhelmed by the story of my life and how it's supposed to read.  I know I am the author and I'm still writing and writing and writing and it's like I've created a million different plot lines and I can't figure out how to pull them together.  I sit staring at my life thinking of the infinite possibilities that are staring me in the face.  I don't mean infinite possibilities as in I'm spoiled for choice, but my life is like a horizonless ocean with so many directions to go I cannot tell which one will take me to the right shore.  And what is the right shore?  North, South, East, West or any of the 356 degrees in between?  I fell in love again.  It wasn't the story I thought it would be.  He is earth and wood, color and chrome, dreams and demise.  He became the story I wanted.  Then he became the story I ran from years ago.  Hot and cold, yes and no, all and nothing.  I told myself this wasn't the story I wanted anyway.  I wanted the template of higher education, religion, breadwinner, and creature comfort.  Professors together understanding one another implicitly through psychology and knowing just what to say.  Not wordless understanding, love at first sight, a stay at home dad who wants to settle down.  Not an alien pondering, pot smoking, yogi who talks incessantly, washes my feet, cooks me gourmet meals, bandages my cuts, and takes me to lunch with his 93 year old grandfather who tells me his own love story.
        What is a love story really?  Is it happenstance?  Is it a series of choices?  Some people regret their stories...but could it really have been written any other way if you are yourself?  I am myself.  I love long and deep and hard.  Intense, that's what he called it, me, us.  I am myself and I can't be anything else unless I don't care.
         I suppose now, my love story is:  I fell in love in a day, we lived as if we were partners in life, we were afraid and fell apart, I still love him, I'm still afraid.  But I do live happily and will continue to live happily ever after.  After what?  I don't know...the story isn't over yet.

"The blue sky opens out farther and farther, the daily sense of failure goes away, the damage I have done to myself fades when I sit firmly in the world."

~Kabir

My heart is deepening with poetry, words, thoughts, and peace.   My reconnection with the earth is growing strength in me Who knew love was such a strength, but it is choosing to love and understand despite conflict. It is the craziest sort of peace I have ever experienced.  The first thought of it in your head sounds like losing but, when you do it, you win.  This is the kingdom turned upside down, the force that is life that we rush toward not death.  It is the third option, the other person's eyes.  How do I lose it so often, this second sight and these third thoughts.  They are the essence of Your soul and my being.  So may I be your body and do your work in this world and my your life, your blood flow through me every moment of my life.

poem

Namesakes in laundry baskets
Butter and salt
Love stories walking through
movies in my mind
I have a name for myself
that flies through air like wind
Who I want to be
and who I've always been

Remember

I am a rememberer.  I remember everything, but looking back and thinking I realize that I don't remember a lot about myself.  I remember things I've done and things people have done around me, but I have a hard time remembering how I felt, what I was going through, how I handled it, what I said, what I thought, what I hashed out with myself.  These things just become a part of who I am and I succumb to them.  It's like not focusing on your next to smallest left toe.  I would notice if it was gone, but if you asked me about it I would probably have to look at it in order to describe it.  That is why I get this irrational fear of not writing down things that are going on in my life.  Sure I obviously only need to write about it once every two months or so (which is why I have only completed two journals in the span of 9 years), but lately I've been feeling this pressure to document my listless misery of this past semester.  It has been one of the hardest, depressing assemblage of months I have ever experienced.  I keep thinking if I don't write it down it won't have happened.  I'll move on, I'll forgive, I'll forget, I won't remember because it would be beneficial to me.
       Which brings me to another problem of mine.  I have a hard time doing things for myself.  Every part of me screams, "I don't have needs!!!"  I went to St. Bartholomew's Episcopal church with my friends, not the first time, a few months back and a lady at the door greeted me.  She mentioned she had never seen me before and when I mentioned I was visiting with a friend she offered me a loaf of bread that they make for visiters.  Before I could even process what she had told me, my mouth was saying, "Oh!  No.  No, thank you!"  and I was backing awkwardly away.  My whole body language screamed, "I don't need help, I don't need bread, I don't have needs, I don't have needs, I don't have needs."  And I don't.  I don't need to eat when I'm on the job until I'm passing out.  I don't need time to myself when I'm offered another last minute babysitting job or am asked if I can take another phone intake.  I don't need to sleep before I spend a full day working tomorrow.  You need to talk to me.  You need me to watch your children.  You need me to do an intake.  You need me to soothe your fears and say wise words.  But I do not need you, because if I did, then it might all fall apart.  I would not longer be the goddess of wisdom.  I would no longer be the champion of unorganized souls.  I would no longer be me, and I would be unable to function without you.  But I already cannot function without you.  Without you I am not needed, and I do not exist.
        I admit it.  I cannot take, because when I do I cannot stop.  I cannot take, because I feel like a fool who cannot care for herself.  I cannot take, because then you will be in control of me, when I am in control of my needs, so much so that they do not exist.  Maybe this is why pride is a sin.  My perfection puts a wall between me and others that says, I am above the relationship.  We are meant to need each other, not in a burdensome way, but in a caring way.  Even taking is a service.  It teaches others to be humble.

Voiceless

I have only ever spent one day of my life without speaking to anyone.  Today was the second day.  Waking up without even the choice to use your voice if you absolutely need to is harrowing.  I couldn't work my last day before spring break.  I couldn't participate in counseling supervision in anyway.  I couldn't even call to make a doctor's appointment.  I also couldn't cuss, answer phone calls I didn't particularly want to take, or yell at my cat.  I also couldn't hiccup or be heard crying over the possibility of not graduating this Fall.  I couldn't make exasperated noises or squeaks of laughter.  All I could do was be.  In the scheme of things I'm glad I had the opportunity to have a whole day where I couldn't say anything bad about somebody else or wonder if I said the right thing.  I'm so glad no one heard me cry.

Now I Know How it Feels

I've been lying to myself if I've said this is good
I've been lying to others when I say it's fine
I didn't lie when I said there's nothing to tell
Agoraphobia of my limitless possibilities
Battles the cage and chains I feel now
Too much responsibility steals away my life
Songs tell me how it should be
How it can be
How it will be
But how can that be
when my life is made in days and all I see are years of inability
If only I could take my own advice
and remove this instability
Can you be your own rock?
Can you be your own force,
your own god, your own horse?
The answer is no
And still I try and try and try
Hit it one handed; point it where you want it to go
I know, I know, I know

Circles

So today I read that there is to be a new exhibit in the new art building of student art called Found.  The irony slapped me nekked and hid my clothes, as Dr. Alden would like to awkwardly say.  My life has been running in circles lately and I just seem to sit and watch it.  I worked at the AACC conference for the department last week.  Our booth was right across from George Fox University (where I flew out for 4 hours of group interviewing and wasn't told a thing about the program but was accepted) and down the way was an entire booth of Jesus paintings where Jesus is the man's arm while he does heroine; Jesus has boxing gloves, flowing curly hair, and a glittering smile in the corner of a boxing ring gazing pointedly at you; and Jesus has a tattoo on his arm of a fiery heart with words on it I'm too embarrassed to read because he is staring directly at me with a look on his face that says "You know you want it".  Oh bad Christian art, and the days of Christianity and the Visual Arts.  Just because brother Joshua loves Jesus a lot and sees him this way doesn't mean he's good at ART.  As much as I was cringing, I wonder how God felt.  I have no idea what I would do if people pasted pictures of me everywhere like that...probably develop a sense of humor in self defense.  And then around the corner I saw a man who I worked with to develop some groupings for a phone app for ADHD medication maximization, I almost just ran away.  So awkward and so crazy, but then maybe not as crazy as running into Hannah Smith's first boyfriend ever who knew only two people at Lipscomb University, Jesse Smith and Hannah Smith. And me trying very hard not to ask, "Aren't you the one who sang 'I am every thing you want!  I am everything you need!  I am everything inside of you that you wish you could be!  I do all the right things at exactly the right time, but I mean nothing to you and I don't know why?' under her window after she broke up with you?"  Really life...chasing your own tail much?  When do I get something new?  When do I get to live in a place where I run into people I don't know?  When do I get to be new?  Can I be the new art?  Can I be something found? And of course the fundamental, clinical, counseling answer to myself is always...Yes.  Make it happen tomorrow...because the Tom Bake scarf and your homework isn't finished tonight.




Did I mention this guy in high school who had a crush on me messaged me creepily the other day?