torn

This past weekend was one of progress for me. I was able to finally clear the air with a friend of mine, get things out in the open where they should be, so we can be on our way to a healthy relationship. It was exactly what I was hoping for.

Or was it?

Now that we've cleared the air, I have this feeling of...something. I can't decide if it's dread that now that the air is clear what I probably always knew is indeed true. Or hope that we didn't slam into a brick wall after all. Or this feeling of being totally out of control of things. I can't shake feeling unsettled, and I wonder if part of it relates to anxiety that's building for the weekend ahead. What if things go really poorly? What if things go really well? What if at the end of the weekend I end up back at square one. Alone. With my heart in my hands.

Hold on...I'm having an anxiety attack.

new lenses

No I didn't get new glasses. Nor do I need them (yet).

But since this past weekend, I can sense that I am seeing the world through new eyes.

Up until last weekend I was spending each week trudging through the muck of work and indecision and uncertainty. I was existing for Friday night, filling my Saturdays with monotonous chores, and spending Sunday afternoons dreading the concept of the dawn of another work week. Hours were filled with doubt and frustration.

This week starts a new view of things. Granted I'm still happy it's Friday and glad for a couple of days off. But I feel as though I've regained my life. The doubt and frustration have been replaced with happiness and confidence. Because I know that there is someone out there who is thinking of me, who cares that I have a good day, and is looking for ways to make the 5 hours between us seem more like a bridge than a chasm.

More than anything, I'm glad that I've learned that I deserve to be happy. Not in that, I've paid my dues, look at me sort of way. But God doesn't want us to spend life moping about. He wants our eyes to be bright with the wonder of creation...not just nature, but with at least some of the people He's put on this earth. How else will we be able to see and know the love He feels for us?

It's a great view.

cloud 10

I learned a very important lesson over the weekend. Surround yourself with people who make you want to be better, who make you feel valued for the way you are, and who care about you when you screw up.

This was a good weekend for me. Full of revelations and epiphanies. I learned that I can stand on my own two feet. And that the mistakes I made in the past, are in the past. I can't change them, and anyone who would judge me for them isn't truly a friend anyway. And I got to feel what it's like to come alive and feel vital.

I want to keep feeling like this. Like a butterfly, a newly-opened flower. And I don't want the fear that the feeling is going to end to keep me from becoming who I'm meant to be.

overflowing

Have you ever had so many different emotions coursing through your body that you felt like if someone touched you they'd get a shock?

That's how I'm feeling.

I'm excited. A new friend is coming to town this weekend. There are lots of questions to be asked and answered.

I'm disappointed. An old friend, one I thought was going to be around for a while, is MIA. So I'm mourning the loss of a companion.

I'm tired. I feel like I've been running a marathon these past 2 weeks. I just need a break.

I'm scared. What if everything falls apart?

But I have to remember. God is the blessed Controller of ALL things. The good stuff, the bad stuff, the fun stuff, the scary stuff, the clear stuff, the unclear stuff. And His hand is in this, His eyes are watching, and He won't let me out of His grasp.

So...I will trust. I will be still and KNOW that He is God. I will listen to His voice as He whispers. And know that no matter how this weekend turns out, He knew about it all along.

long time, no talk

So it's been awhile since I posted anything. Not that there's been nothing to say. Just busy.

I won't let it happen again.

Things have been sort of topsy-turvey in the far country here of late. The person I thought was going to be a landmark in my country fell off the planet. And someone I thought was just visiting might decide to plant roots here after all. We'll see.

I'm scared. The nervous, excited kind of scared you feel when something is new and has potential and you don't want to see it explode into a fireball the size of the Milky Way right in front of your eyes. I'll keep you posted.

I'm also a little disturbed. I'm not as bothered by the loss of the former plant/landmark as I thought I would be. Perhaps things have just disintegrated so much that there's nothing left to feel. Is that bad? Are my walls of protection erecting themselves? Reinforcing themselves? I don't want to close myself 0ff from something that could be really good.

I just hope if those are walls I'm building, that there's a space in there somewhere for a door or window or something. Or this country is gonna be mighty desolate.

lover's holiday

Valentine's is always sort of an odd holiday for me. It was created by a card company, and the only people who can really appreciate the celebration of it are those who have a significant other in their life.

Me, I've had a "significant other" in one sense of the word for a while now. But our significance is definitely more plutonic than romantic. So I had no idea what to expect going into Valentine's. And it's probably a good idea. Because if I had had expectations about that person, they would have been miserably unmet.

But the day wasn't a loss by any means. A new friend, who seems to want to be more a significant than an other, decided to start to make his presence known. Not in an over-the-top stalker kind of way. But in a sweet, makes-you-smile sort of way.

It should be clear which one is significant and which one is an other, but it's more complicated than that. There are feelings involved. There are unanswered questions. And there is the fear that I will make the wrong decision. That I will stick with the logical "right" one and keep being disappointed.

Why is this the sort of decision I have to make? Surely there's another choice.

pilgrim

we are pilgrims on a journey...

I don't know why, but I was thinking about this line today. In less than 48 hours I'm going to be transplanted from my normal, everyday routine into the midst of the Big Apple. I'm not a city girl. I mean, I like a good city. But for the long haul, I'm much more of a leave-me-alone kind of person.

But I just have a feeling that, like when you go anywhere you haven't been before (or at least in a while), I'll come back different. Refreshed. I hope so. Restored. Possibly. Ready to embrace where my life is going (wherever that is). I have to.

So here's hoping that my next post reflects someone who's actually let herself be molded by experience, instead of the other way around.

faith to be strong

I was reading something online this morning, and the person referenced this song.

I can definitely relate these lyrics. I've been fighting some sort of creepy crawly crud this week, so I'm definitely feeling weary and weak and tired and fragile.

But God.

But God has filled my week with emails and phone calls and visits with friends who love me, who make me want to be strong. They make me want to keep going when I feel like giving up. They are tangible representations of God's love and touch in my life, and I couldn't be more thankful for them.

I am blessed.

licking my wounds

Have you ever had a weekend where everything was great...until Sunday night? And that one thing changed the perspective of a perfectly good weekend into one that...there's no other word for this...sucked? Me too.

The thing that I hate about it is that I can't shake the negative feeling - the feeling of dread - that it's left me with. And that makes me vacillate between despair, anger, frustration, and pain. Until I'm numb. Nothing. Completely mute to the whole emotion of it all. Surely this isn't how life is meant to be. No matter how much our parents deceived us into thinking life could be puppies and flowers, is it really supposed to hurt this much?

I just don't even want to be here anymore. And that's no good.

it should be friday

I have had to correct myself on what day it is way too many times today. It should be Friday. It's unbelievably frigid outside (okay, not really, but when it was 73 on Sunday, the fact that it's 33 seems a little surreal), I am in need of a long weekend, and I just want to be somewhere else. Although, tomorrow's gonna roll around and I'm not going to know what to do with myself.

I am clinging desperately onto a balanced perspective to keep myself from wallowing in the pool of pity that my toes have been itching to dip themselves in for the past few days (if I'm honest, it's been longer than that). I'm tired of being the patient one. I'm tired of being the understanding one. I know it's selfish, but I want to feel like I matter to someone. And right now I feel like I could drop off the face of the earth and NOT A SOUL would notice or care.

This is not a good place to be. I need to "pull the tires out of the mud and search for some green grass." And that's not easy when you're tired.

hollywoodland

No this isn't a post about the sign in L.A. Or the Ben Affleck movie.

I was just trying to think about where the roots of discontent are. Do they start as kernels in my mind, planted there by other people? By books? And more often than not I think they are rooted in entertainment.

I can't count how many movies I've watched (some more than times than I want to admit) that paint a picture of the life I long for. One that includes a Mr. Right, and a couple/few wee ones who are always angels and make life meaningful...or at least comical. And in every one of those movies the right guy comes along at the right time. He says the right stuff, and if he screws up, he delivers the perfect apology.

See the problem with being a writer, or someone who likes to play with words for a living, is that in my head I can hear the perfect script all day long. I say this, he says that. And we live happily ever after. Cause it's a formula like that, right?

But in reality, he says the wrong thing, I say the wrong thing, or I deliver my lines wrong, and I walk away wondering "What the heck..?!"

It's just so hard to find contentment when it seems that pretty much everyone around you has what you're longing for. I know that's not really the case, but isn't that always the way at the movies?

all about me

I debated whether I should title this entry something so self-serving and self-focused as "all about me" - but it reflects a new direction of thinking. Not that I have neglected myself in the past or anything, or that I think the universe should revolve around me (shouldn't it? - kidding), but that one of the things I have resolved for 2007 (yes - I made a resolution) is that I am going to focus on the things that matter to me, to not let my dreams sit on the back burner waiting to see what other people think or do. I am going to pursue the doors in front and around me...see if they're open, see where they go...

So here's to a new year, and a life where Jesus actually is the center, the place I fix my eyes.

"I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, where my help comes from." Ps. 121:1

real

I want to be profound. To write about things that make people sit back and ponder how someone could have strung those words together into "that" thought. But the bottom line is, I'm not feeling profound. In fact, I'm not really feeling anything at all.

Things have been eerily silent in my world for almost a week now. At first I wasn't bothered, as I figured it would end eventually. And then I was really saddened by the silence. I was angry. And now, I'm nothing. Guess I've been working through the stages of grief, and I'm not even sure (1) what I'm grieving about and (2) if there's really anything to grieve at all.

Now, in the aftermath, as the emotions have worn down and the ashes are cold, I have this nagging fear. What if in dealing with this "death" as it were I lost the strength to dream again? Will I ever be able to have that kind of dream? And what did all of this mean? I know it wasn't for nothing, and that nothing is lost, but I'm feeling a bit lost myself, wondering when the lesson will show its face and I'll be able to see what this has all been about. Because right now it just feels like an excruciatingly long lesson in being abandoned. And I thought I'd already learned that one.

crossroads

Finally, after weeks and months of questioning myself and worrying about what I should do, if I was making the right decision, etc., I have finally reached a crossroads. You know, one of those places where you have to make a decision, not only in order to move forward, but also to stay alive.

For the past several months I have sat on my hands and stapled my lips shut, always in hopes that things would resolve themselves and relationships would progress. But that just hasn't happened, and it isn't likely to. Yesterday I learned volumes about one of the people in my circle. I learned that there's no reason to keep watching and waiting. Things aren't going to change, unless I change them. And when they do change, it's not going to be the progress I was hoping for. Instead, it will be a release, letting go of a dream that is long-since dead.

Am I okay with this? Obviously I would love for the outcome to be positive, that the relationship would be where it should be. But I am ready to face the reality that it's time to call the time of death on things. I know there will be lots of pieces of me and my heart that are left over, but God can deal with those. For now, I need to take action.

Wish me luck.

perspective

I've been spending the past couple of days with my family. We, like pretty much every family I know, have our quirks. Every visit usually consists of the same handful of events and conversations. I know I will eat too much - partially because of some mad cooking and baking skills I'm in the vacinity of and partially because it helps me to diffuse the stress a bit. And then in a few days I'll go home and everything will be back to normal.

But I was realizing last night that for all the anxiety and stress and sheer frustration of it all, being away from home is so good for me. I'm separated from my normal routine by hundreds of miles.

It almost feels like I'm in a plane that's just taken off. And for those first several minutes, as the plane climbs into the air, I can see the roads for the tiny grids that they are. Hundreds of acres of land are little checker block-sized squares.

And from this distance the grid of this word and that word, this action and that action, takes its place in the grand scheme of things. I find the stuff that worries me is not the end of the world, by any stretch of the imagination, even if it seemed like the biggest deal just a couple days ago. It's part of the road I'm on. And I can accept that, because I know that (1) I can't do anything to take back what I did or said and (2) it's all going to work out in the end. It may hurt or be hard on the way there, but it will end.

I just hope I can keep this outrageously healthy attitude when I get home.

direction

I am lost. I'm not afraid to ask for directions, I just don't know where I'm going or what I'm going to do when I get there.

Why does it seem like my prayers are falling on deaf ears? And why can't I just rest in the knowledge that it's all going to work out in the end?

I just can't see past all these darn trees to the edge of the forest.

trust

It's been a while since I've written. Not that I haven't had anything to say, I just haven't had the time to type it out. I'm going through another one of those times when I'm overwhelmed with all sorts of emotions, and most of them aren't the greatest.

Fear. Anxiety. Doubt. Frustration. And somewhere in there, between the tiny cracks that knit all these feelings together, is a glimmer of hope. It's not a spark, so I'm not sure if it'll catch or not, but it's there, wishing for the air it needs to grow into a flicker and maybe even a flame.

It centers on trust. I was talking about life and things with my friend Amy yesterday and she reminded me that we cannot place our trust in people. I'm not talking about that I-hope-you-remember-to-do-what-you-said-you'd-do trust. I'm talking about the abiding you'll-never-let-me-down kind. Which can't come from a human. Because we all fail. I fail. You fail. Even the most successful people fail sometimes.

This is hard for me to accept. I want to trust the people in my life, especially those closest to me, but they are always letting me down in some way, shape, or form. So how can I learn to place that trust in God, and still love the people whose trust I was counting on?

I need to learn to let go of control. To test (or train) myself to relax, to rest in the arms of the One who I can always trust to do what He says. This is even harder than accepting the trust thing.

Guess I need to keep praying for the strength to do this. Before I do something I'll regret.

vacant

I'm in a weird place. I usually am really excited because there's something on the horizon, or I'm really sad because I've been disappointed by myself or someone else. But today, I just don't feel anything. I'm not happy. I'm not sad. I just am. I am looking 30 square in the eye and while I'm not excited about it, what can I really do? The day is going to come whether I want it to or not, so I can either wallow and whine and complain, or I can accept it, treat it like any other day of the week, and let it go.

I guess part of me wants that day to matter to someone. Maybe part of me just wants to matter to someone.

see-through

I just did something they tell writers NEVER to do. I deleted something I wrote completely. Not because I wasn't feeling what I felt when I wrote those words, but just because feelings like I'm having right this minute need not to be strained through the spaces of old letters and words but to be given the freedom to flow as needed. Thus, the mass delete.

My birthday is in exactly 8 days. I will turn 30, and I have never not wanted to celebrate a birthday as much as I don't want to celebrate this one. And it's not so much that I want the day to come and go without decorum, as I want the day not to come at all. Last night getting ready for bed this realization washed over me with such force that I found myself in tears. Not the silent tears that stream in slow motion down your face, but the sorrowful mass of salty drops that surround a heart that is truly in pain.

I met my friend Meg for coffee last night and she noticed that my eyes looked sad. There is nothing more disturbing than to be told that you look sad in a part of you that you can't control. The haunt of loneliness or grief or whatever can only be hidden to certain point. And I guess mine boiled over.

I'm hanging on for dear life here. I am dangerously close to the edge of a cliff of sorrow that I can't get back on top of. I want to hang on, and the rawness of my fingertips confirms that fact. But I'm afraid that if things continue like this for too much longer, I'm just going to let go. Don't let me.

groundhog day

Don't be disappointed. This post isn't about February 2nd, or the Bill Murray movie.

Today is Friday. And like almost every Friday for the past several months, I have NO CLUE what most of my plans are for the weekend. Granted, this weekend is different than most because I do have some stuff to do tomorrow and Sunday. But I'm out here hanging, because a friend of mine wants to get together at some point this weekend to hang out, but I have yet to find out when yet. And it's after 3pm. My weekend officially starts in less than 2 hours.

Now I know that I can be type A when it comes to having plans together, but really. Is it asking too much to have more than 5 minutes notice on plans for the evening? I guess it's my own fault for feeling the need to have plans. But when someone says they want to get together, shouldn't you assume that that's what they mean and that they'll respect your time enough to set up plans?

Maybe I'm just old-fashioned. One thing's for sure. I'm definitely frustrated.