Tuesday, February 27, 2007

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.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

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.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

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.

Friday, February 02, 2007

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.

Monday, January 29, 2007

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.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

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.

Monday, January 15, 2007

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?

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

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

Friday, December 29, 2006

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.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

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.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

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.

Friday, December 22, 2006

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.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

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.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

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.

Friday, December 08, 2006

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.

Friday, December 01, 2006

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.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

in a rut

I'm stuck.

I'm stuck in this unending pattern of watching and waiting. Only it's not the really holy kind of watching and waiting they tell you will lead to God's perfect will for your life. It's the kind that gets snarled with barbs or doubt and fear. Maybe the waiting is in vain. Maybe there's nothing to watch. Maybe it's the voices in my head telling me to keep waiting or stop waiting or whatever.

Gracious. I'm tired just thinking about it.

But here I am. Watching. And waiting. And hoping like crazy that I won't wake up tomorrow and find out that this was all a gigantic mistake.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Analysis Paralysis

I always laugh when I hear the title of today's post. It's how we in my office describe the powers-that-be who think an idea to death and then end up doing what we were already doing in the first place. It can be pretty demotivating to see a great idea get stuck in the mire of worry and overthinking.

But I realized that I'm guilty of it in my own life. I've been thinking about making some big changes in my life for a while and every time I think I get to the place where I'm ready to make a decision and make my move, I chicken out. I've been considering buying a house for over a year. Over a YEAR. But I've done little more than a casual online search. Because I'm afraid. Of getting in over my head, of having to do all the fix-it stuff myself (I'm power tool-challenged).

And I guess taking the plunge and buying a house is sort of admitting defeat in a way. I've always thought that I would have a house with the person I married - whether it was already his or we bought it together. But if I bought my own house I would be saying, "I'm giving up on the marriage thing." Is this a logical train of thought?

Maybe I'm paralyzing myself in analysis. Again.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

divine touch

I'm writing this down before it slips through my grasp again. It's something I've been thinking about for the past few days, an image I can't get out of my head. So it probably needs a place to grab a bit of air.

I was listening to a pastor over the weekend (I wish I could remember who) and he was making the distinction between God asking me to put my hand in His versus Him saying I'm holding your hand. I never really thought about the difference between the two, but it's comforting to know that when I'm too weary or defeated to stretch out my hand, I don't have to. Because His hand is right there, guiding me through the valley. And He won't let go.

Basketful of Eggs

Every time I think I know what I’m going to write, some other compendium of thoughts comes to the forefront, and I can’t do anything until I’ve managed to round them up and get them down on paper.

I’ve been thinking about the old song “I’m putting all my eggs in one basket…” and how much it relates to my life right now. Over the past year I have gone from having a life that was surrounded by baskets of lots of different people and activities, to one that has essentially centered around one basket. It’s been a basket that’s been warm and cozy at some points, and that’s been downright painful at others. It’s been bright and shiny, and it’s been dark and dingy. And this week it seems to have gone missing.

So my question is, how can I remove my eggs from that basket if I can’t find it? Does that mean I’m lost? I know I probably should have played my cards differently on this one, but I was so resistant to the idea of playing in this situation that I ended up losing the game — and myself — in the end anyway. The scary thing is, I can’t decide whether it’s better to stop looking for the basket and start over or to hunt the basket down so I can empty it.

Scarier still, what if the basket doesn’t realize it’s missing?