My dad passed away on November 29, 2009.

This is the first time that I can remember having emotions that I can't write about. There has been plenty that I couldn't talk about, but writing has always been a source of relief. I feel like I am waiting for something to happen before I let life go on.. except that it's not quite waiting. It's somewhere between waiting and expecting.

I can't explain this feeling, though. I'm waiting for something- it sounds weird, I know. I haven't told many people that he passed away because I'm waiting. I haven't cried because I'm waiting. What am I waiting for? I haven't the slightest idea.

I can't imagine that death is a state that will change, so I can't be waiting for him to come back. Even though I wish I had more time to get to know the man whose eyes I have. Even though I know he was in pain, and that wishing he were here is selfish.

Maybe I'm waiting for a goodbye. I never really believed in messages from "the other side", but I get why people want them. I understand why others seek them.

While I sit and wait for something to happen, I keep hearing the same song. It started with Pandora, then the radio, then Glee, and now it just pops into my head when I least expect it.

Smile
Though your heart is aching
Smile
Even though it's breaking
When there are clouds
In the sky,
You'll get by
If you smile
Through your fear and sorrow
Smile
And maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun
Come shining through
For you

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. I'm waiting for tomorrow. I'm waiting for something to change.. I just don't know what.

I'm beginning to believe that any advice besides "Trust yourself" is poor advice. Each time advice other than this is given, the result is stunted growth. Each individual must learn, feel, and move in their own way; by their own experiences. When we point someone in a direction we are confining them to our own opinions and views- we are recreating ourselves. If we would only push aside our foolish personal status quo the world wouldn't be the home of billions of judgmental cookie-cut copies. If we would stop pointing fingers and giving warnings, real meaning could be restored to life; true wisdom- not memorization of a set of regulations- would be a more common characteristic.

But we all find ourselves the exception! We all think we went the right way- or at least know the right way- and we believe that everything else is in the wrong. When did we become such arrogant pricks? When did I decide that I know the answers to your deepest, darkest questions and why do I assume I know your path better than you do? Sure, some of us seem to navigate through our journeys better than others, but it was experience that made that possible. The very experiences that we are denying those around us.

So.. I'm engaged.

That's all I can say right now. I'll write more when the shock wears off.

"I'm dying of thirst by the side of a fountain." ~ Charles D'Orleans


I know I should feel hurt or sad. I know I should feel a wide variety of feelings that I refuse to deal with at the moment. I spend hours trying to snuff out the beginnings of flames- flames of emotions that I am not ready to deal with. Flames that are igniting in all directions across the open fields of my soul. Flames that are fed with fears and insecurities that are dry and brittle with ware. Flames that I rein in because if they ever got out of control, if they ever managed to burn away all of the dead growth I don't think there would be much left.

This is what happens when you ignore that one little campfire that is too close to the trees. I finally understand what Smokey the Bear is all about. Only I had the power to prevent this current predicament, but I let that one stupid campfire burn. I let one emotion in, and now there's a whole sea full of flaming arrows headed my direction.



The only thing I want to feel right now is anger. The kind of anger that drives a person to do more in a day than any amount of coffee ever could. The kind of anger that transports a person into a new world. A world were their worst paranoia is the foundation of reality and using and being used is the only way of life. The kind of anger that pushes everything else out of my mind- which is why I let myself feel it in the first place. To erase everything else.

Because if that little spark of something else were to meet with the dry terrain of my heart, I don't know what I would do. I don't know if I could handle it. I don't think there would be enough fluid in my body to quench the raging wildfire. And I certainly wouldn't expect survivors.

I have had my share of injuries. I am quite the expert on open wounds. I even went through a period where the piercing of my skin brought me an odd sense of reassurance. I love the look of shiny skin after the last traces of a scab have disappeared. But people don't realize how fragile that skin is. They treat it like any other skin, and sometimes it breaks open the old wound. I know all of this, and yet, sometimes I overestimate my skin's durability.

I didn't know that wound could be opened.

I didn't understand that there was still a piece of my heart that was shiny with a newly-faded scab.

I wasn't thinking about my vulnerability until it was too late. I stretched the skin and watched it break and then gasped in surprise at the familiar trickle of liquid.

Little things like this shouldn't have power over me. When you spend so long with a void in your life you should learn to live without it. That's what denial is for- for moments when reality is too painful for you to accept. But I wasn't ready for the surprise attack- the words that slipped themselves into something I had been waiting so anxiously for.

I have waited impatiently for Breaking Dawn to come out. I drove straight to the bookstore after my interview this Saturday morning and bought a copy even though I knew I couldn't start reading it just yet. Just having it in my car was enough. So, the fact that it is resting, untouched and out of sight is really odd.

Weddings have always raised a certain amount of cynicism in my head. I don't buy into the whole consumer-driven frenzy (no pun intended) and they just seem like another one of those social gatherings where everyone is acting how they think they should and not how they really are. Basically, I feel like they are manufactured bullshit. I struggle to understand their significance, and I honestly wouldn't mind if that piece of a happily ever after were absent in my future. I mean, I want the guy, I want the commitment.. but as for everything else, it seems like a giant, unnecessary ball of waste.

Ironically, the one thing I have always envied is the one thing I will never have. Because even if I found the one I couldn't live without (which I have) and I had an unlimited monetary supply to spend on the wedding (which I never would do anyway) I wouldn't get my favorite part. I never get to have that moment where one man hands the object of his affection to another man. I'll never experience the walk down the isle like other brides do. I'll never have the father/daughter dance where a million and one pictures are snapped. And what's worse is that I will never know the feeling behind those actions. I will never know what it is like to have a dad.

So when I read the words, "I will love you forever dad" and the waterworks started, I knew why. I just had no idea that wound hadn't healed completely. I thought for sure there would be a callous in place to protect me from that pain, and it impresses me that there wasn't. I'm watching the wound gush and staring at it like a train wreck.. and it's entertaining me that there is so much pain left in the stagnant corners of heart.

WARNING: If you haven't read Stephanie Meyer's masterpieces, you might not understand this. Also, you should get on that.
About six years ago my best friend and I were obsessed with a CD by a band called Trick Pony.  After a heinous follow-up album, the band slipped from the spotlight and into obscurity.  A few days ago I was driving home from work and I heard the debut single of the lead singer from Trick Pony, Heidi Newfield, who has apparently kicked off a solo career. It's an amazing song, and today when I heard it driving home I thought of Patrice and sewing noses, the man who introduced me to Johnny Cash, and then Jacob Black. [Don't stop reading just yet.]

I'm a practical person. While I may not always take the path of least resistance, I almost always take the most logical path through my necessary resistance. I like things simple. And although I sometimes dream of fame and fortune, in the long run I know I would never be happy with such a complicated existence. I love feeling appreciated but hate being the center of attention. I cannot take a compliment gracefully to save my life.

I don't think you should have to change who you are for the person you love. You shouldn't have to alter your very essence in order to be with anyone. You shouldn't have to surrender yourself- for anyone. You should get a chance to spend your life with the person who makes love as easy as breathing. You should have a shot at waking up beside your air; your sun.





I had a giant hole inside. Not from just one bloodsucking fiend, but a lifetime of them. Trust might as well have been a curse word and vulnerability meant certain death when you walked in. You taught me what it meant to happy again; helped me remember what it meant to hope in a future that was more than business and politics. I remembered what it was like to feel comfortable being me. And I have never in my life understood what it meant to feel whole and yet half simultaneously. Loving you is effortless, and I cannot imagine walking away from the person who brought me back to life.

"I wanna hold you baby right or wrong
Build a world around a country song
Pray a sweet prayer
Follow you there
Down in history

"I want a love like Johnny & June
Rings of fire burnin' with you
I wanna walk the line
Walk the line
'Till the end of time
I wanna love
Love ya that much
Cash it all in
Give it all up
When you're gone
I wanna go too
Like Johnny & June" 
~ Heidi Newfield

There are few things in this life that I count as unchanging, but one of them is the power of words. I think few people would argue with the sentiment that on the macro level words are a vital part of language and communication. But this power goes deeper than that. I believe that a person can create a vessel with their words which will cause a ripple in the sea of humanity. The impact of various novels, such as Uncle Tom's Cabin, have been credited with rewriting history. I feel that again, few people would argue with this claim. But I reach even further into this ancient power; I believe that with a sentence one person can change another's life. And not always for the better.

My grandmother has a saying: "You can never regret the words you don't say." Before we speak, the ramifications of our words should be considered. We should evaluate if the passion of the moment is causing these words to manifest- if they are no more than a fleeting sentiment that is not worth the consequences. Somethings are just better left unsaid.

Then there are moments where the thing you know you shouldn't say- the beast that is borne from the heat of immediate emotion- is scratching its way out of your restraints.




I'm slipping and I'm not so certain I want to catch myself.

"I do not walk among the living- I ride their coat tails. There are moments- which can last days- when I begin to sympathize with the human experience, but for the most part I feel isolated in a world of simple observations. My feelings are nothing more than a mockery of the stories I read and the conversations on which I eavesdrop. I wonder if I would be capable of existence away from these borrowed meanings. Am I simply playing a part in a satire of a life?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I knew it would catch up with me eventually- it is impossible to perpetually evade a piece of your own being. As I sit here with the lull of misery falling softly around my shoulders I have an odd sense of completion. There is comfort in the arms of sorrow. This feeling knows me- and I know it. We have spent years in each other's company and grown to understand each other's very essence. I am beginning to wonder if anyone will ever be able to touch this piece of me- if there is any escape from this place. I am starting to think that I might not mind if there is no way to rid myself of the closing walls, the invading thoughts. I might be happy if I were left in the shallow pools of lonely darkness.

"I can hear it responding to me, in the faintest of whispers, telling me that it is I who keep returning. That I am not being followed, as I want to believe, but that I willingly return to its subtle gestures of painful compassion. That I long for the escape that comes within its suffocating prison. That I ache for the destructive familiarity far more than I am willing to admit."

I can steal your face with a thousand glances;
Imbue your image in a million memories.
I can pick out your scent on a crowded avenue;
Feel your arms in every summer breeze.

I can glamorize the way you smile at the ceiling
When the world around you doesn’t understand.
I can memorize the way you rest your fingers
On the palm of your opposite hand.

I can hear your voice in a sea of sound bytes;
Imagine the gestures to every single word.
I can predict the patterns, the diction, the timing;
Even give the answer before the question’s heard.

But that’s all I have.
 
You'll walk away: I'll be the last one standing
And you won’t even know I was there.

I was walking the twins in the park today and I saw a Muslim man praying. The way he was praying caused an avalanche of emotion inside my heart. I wanted to throw my arms around him and listen to all that this prayer meant to him. His faith, his devotion, his humility, hung on every action- every movement. I wondered if I look that sure when I pray. I wondered if you can see in my expression a reckless love for something greater than myself.

I wonder if my relationship with my God shines on my face when people come across my quiet moments in the park.

A few days ago I read something that made me stop and think about the way my brain is wired. I read that people have a harder time believing in "good" then they do in "evil"- that it is easy to imagine punishment and Hell but hard to accept that God exists and loves us. I started to argue with the non-responsive pages of the book when a memory crossed my mind and I began to understand the point behind the author's words.

It's not hard to believe that there is brokenness and pain in this world. If you are having trouble believing that, I suggest you turn on the news. We are taught from a young age that some people are "bad" and as we grow we begin to wonder where the "good" people are. Looking across all the death and destruction life has to offer it is not hard to imagine that real evil exists, but it is hard to hope. It is hard to see suffering in a fellow human and earnestly believe that there is a loving being in control of it all. It takes real courage to believe in what you cannot tangibly see.




It's not hard to turn religion into a set of "can" and "cannots" but what you are really saying when you trust in this spiritual to-do list is that you have control. You are claiming that by following the color-by-number spots on your soul you will paint your own way into happiness- whatever that is. You are underestimating your weakness and God's power to save. You are saying that His saving grace is not enough. You are placing faith in the evil of this world and not in God. You are doubting God, but believing that there is a punishment.

If your faith was in God you would accept that you are imperfect and so is that list of "dos" and "don'ts" that is so easy to cling to. You would lean solely on the knowledge that your God is mighty to save and that there is nothing left for you to do except trust Him.





I, for one, spend too much of my life believing in the "bad" and not the "good". Instead of trusting that I am loved and enjoying it, I am thinking of the three million things that could go wrong. I'm thinking of the distractions that could take him away and at least a dozen flaws that I think he couldn't possibly ignore. It is easy for me to believe that hard times will happen and damn near impossible for me to believe that things will work out. But I'm trying.

I hate mouth noises. Seriously, nothing is worse than the sound of people eating. Left over issues from an eating disorder- probably. Whatever the cause, I can't stand them. {Smack, smack, smack.} There have been TV couples whose relationships I have not supported simply because they kissed too loud. *cough*DawsonandJoey*cough* And right now I am at work and my boss is about 15 feet away and I can hear every single chew. HONESTLY. I'm going nuts.

Another thing I can't stand, Tom Cruise. And hangnails. Both of those things are extremely unnecessary if you ask me. Well, I suppose only one of those is a thing; the other is a Scientologist. I bet Tom Cruise has perfect table manners. That would only serve to annoy me further. I wonder if TomKat kisses as noisily as Katie and James did....

P.S. I Love You is not a movie to watch when you are wearing a ton of mascara- waterproof or not. Thankfully, I was not wearing any.

I am a planner. I have been my whole life. I am pragmatic and calculating… and a planner. But, let’s face it, my plans suck, and they suck because I follow my head and my plans, and seldom do I follow my heart.  There is only so much enjoyment that can come from the knowledge that you have a plan laid out- you cannot enjoy what you cannot feel.

"We don’t have a plan, Jerry."
    "That’s okay, love. Your plans never work out anyway."
"That’s true."

The problem with my plans is they are generally don’t happen- and by generally, I mean almost never. I came into college knowing exactly where I was going- what job I would have, what life I would live- and every detail of that plan has been tossed to the wayside. I am not complaining about it either, because through the years I have grown to understand that the life I had planned was based on what would make everyone else happy and I was utterly miserable chasing that rainbow.  I do miss the illusion that I knew what the hell I was doing though.

Now here I am, just this side of college-life, with absolutely no idea where I am headed. I wish I could say that the peace I have comes from my growing trust in God, but that would just be a lie. It's less of a peace and more a realization that I am helpless. What is really happening is that I have come to terms with the fact that I have no clue what I am doing, so I am desperately hoping that God will take “Project Future” off my hands, and do what He thinks is best.

I read a quote my first year of college on a bulletin board on the sixth floor that said,

"She went out on a limb, and just when she thought she was going to fall she found she could fly."

I know a little piece of what I want. It’s a tiny piece of the big picture, but it’s an important piece. I’m going to have to climb out on a limb to get it, but I am trusting that if the branch breaks I’ll find my wings- or a jet pack.

I spent a lot of time developing the theory that you CAN, in fact, help who you fall in love with. I swore up and down that if you didn't want to love someone, it was completely within your ability to walk away; that there was a window of time where you could safely bail.

I never bought the sole-mates thing. I mean, with all the billions of people in the world there could not possibly be only one person out there for you. It's just statistically improbable. There have to be at least a couple thousand who are pretty astoundingly similar characters. You could potentially fall for any of those thousands- but that is not a soul-mate.

I think romance is ruining our culture- Disney has most certainly painted an unrealistic picture of what it means to live "Happily Ever After". The divorce rate alone can be used as evidence to the argument that people are not willing to work on their problems anymore, they just want the newest model.




So much of my cynical, bitter shell is wrapped up in these fundamental beliefs that I find myself having a daily identity crisis. I'm starting to question whether I could walk away. I am starting to marvel at how well the pieces fit; how special it all feels. I'm starting to think that relationships are more then business transactions, and that there is something- some deep, undefinable thing- that moves the pieces of the universal chess board. And that maybe some pieces are meant to collide.

By admitting even the possibility of error I am leaving myself vulnerable- very vulnerable- which is not comfortable, to say the least. To think that I have no power over the situation- that I have to willingly surrender my heart to another's hands in order to really participate- is a thought that causes the shrillest, panic-filled protests in the back of my mind. The scariest part of it all is that the protests are being silenced by an unidentified force. Something inside me insists that I have to throw caution to the wind, and trust that the Chess Master knows exactly what is best. He can see the big picture; I cannot.


But where do you even begin?

"Every moment spent in reality I am conscious of the tightening in my chest.  I can feel the momentum of my heart as its palpitations become steadily more frequent.  I rush through my circulatory system as my body attempts to meet its ever-increasing demand for oxygen.  Each moment is rigid and quick.  

"But this world is full of inspiration, so I return willingly.  

"In this world there is movement; there are opportunities to collide.  It is from this world of sensory ecstasy that I developed what lies on the other side of reality- what lies within.  I have decorated that world with the colors of wildflowers and memories of an evening breeze, and though the scenes were designed in the image of something from reality they cannot react to my presence like they could if they were, in fact, real.  

"But this world is freedom, so I return.

"I allow myself to flow with the ink and sink deep into the page my pen courses over. As I emerge on the other side, evenly spaced lines confine me, but I am free to create whatever I wish between these lines.  This life is peace, but it comes with a cost. It is a peace that brings stagnation. For, without the integration of others we would have no experience with which to imagine. So we slip back through our pages- into the stimulus of reality- to find our inspiration.

"But this game of back-an-forth is a dangerous one. It comes with the possibility of finding oneself stuck on the wrong side of the page- lost within our own feeble understandings. Lost with the idea that we alone have been here.  We alone inhabit this earth."

I had quite the entry going tonight.. and I just erased it all.

There is a line in a Rascal Flatts song that says, "I wish I could have the time I lost and give it back to you".  I have always thought those words were beautiful, but within the last week I have begun to scratch the surface of their meaning. 

I am known as a master of hesitation. I over-think and over-analyze. I dodge decision-making like my life depends on it. I can dance around questions, flawlessly change subjects, and speak for hours without ever saying something significant. Not even Hamlet could compete with my ability to exist in suspension. This should bother me, but it doesn't. It might frustrate the people around me, but I figure I have a life time ahead of me and if there's no fire I'm not going to climb out of the cauldron of indecision.

But I can't help thinking about how differently life could have been had I made this one decision sooner. I wish I had a guarantee that all that wasted time could be paid back in full- that those years I spent thinking about consequences and trying to manipulate the big picture could be tacked on to the end of wherever I'm at right now. I wish I had that time to spend with someone else. Someone who, ironically enough, was there all along.

"I'd like to have the time I lost and give it back to you
But you just smile and take my hand
You've been there, you understand
It's all part of a grander plan that is coming true"
          ~ Rascal Flatts, Bless the Broken Road

I totally fell in love with this song. You should check it out..

Driving in your car
With the windows down
And a beat-up stereo
Struggle with this town
Cause you love to hate it
But hate to let it go
And we’re all alone
And so tired of being underrated
So don’t take me home
Cause I feel alive when you come and save
A yellow car speeding down a south-side freeway
We'll re-write this movie
Make it end like we want it to

And Casey, when you go
Can you come and find me?
I wanna be beside you when you leave this town
I’ll be waving goodbye pretending not to cry
I wanna be someone
If you take me away all the pain will change
Into a memory
When we were amazing

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NXsORzXKnMs

They say that first impressions are not always accurate. I would take that a step further and say that impressions which are formed across months and years of acquaintance can be just as inaccurate. There are times when someone who I thought I knew quite well will do something that completely falls out of the character I had pinned on them. Sometimes it is just an isolated incident, but other times that action allows me to see the person with new eyes, and I begin to understand that the picture I had, of the person I thought I knew, no longer exists.

Maybe this is my fault. Maybe I should not even make an attempt to pin a character on someone because I should understand that people change, just like everything in this life.  Predictions for people's actions could be just as useful as predictions of the weather.

Maybe it is me that is changing, and not others.

Whatever the case.. there is an odd quiet that follows the realization that someone you "knew" is now unpredictable.  There is a danger in this unknown that is unparalleled by the most tremendous of natural disasters. Disasters are supposed to be devastating, but the people you love are supposed to be security- completely predictable.