tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-166271982024-03-07T03:22:22.762-05:00wild melody"you're no broken record turning, you're a wild melody..."{ r }http://www.blogger.com/profile/02662355146132180455noreply@blogger.comBlogger413125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-17422832225477591582021-07-06T22:47:00.000-04:002021-07-06T22:47:49.437-04:00to 10 year old medear little one,
i know you feel confused right now. you feel uncomfortable, unsafe, sad, icky, & guilty. i wish i could tell you to share what happened with someone. but i don't know if any adults in your life have the toolkit to handle this. i know you'll carry this day embedded in your body for decades. i can't fix that. i can't stop it from happening in the first place. oh, how i wish i could!
so the most important thing i want to tell you is this: what happened was not your fault. look at me baby girl-- you are not dirty, you are not evil, this was not a sin you committed. you didn't want this. but you didn't know how to get out of it without hurting him. it's not your fault that you didn't understand the magnitude of what was happening. this was a yucky moment where you were sinned against. (maybe. i don't know how to classify it really)
im sorry the church would spend the next decade of your life pounding into your head that you must have invited it, asked for it; that you were dirty before you even hit puberty. i know you wouldn't connect the dots bc your brain protected you by fogging up this day in your memory. you'll be left with a vague unease you can't explain when you see him in the future & you won't know why you feel impure for another 15-17 years. but now i know. it was never your shame to carry. it was never guilt for something you did.
those are lies, love. you were innocent. you were harmed by a child himself,
who thought his actions were what one did when they loved someone. i know that complicated things. it still does, if i'm honest... i still don't know how to process this. i don't fully remember all the details, even with EMDR. your child-mind is still working so hard to protect you. it's frustrating, but you know what? it's because you are valuable. all these years you have felt less then a worm, you've felt you deserved every bad thing, every abuse. but your mind somwhere deep inside still saw your heart as valuable. still tried to protect your nervous system from remembering a trauma you couldn't handle. there is something sweet amidst all the hurt in that.
you have been so brave. you were still vibrant, hopeful, open-hearted & caring after this. i know you spent so many nights scared & hurting alone. im here now. i'll be here with you, and we will both be ok. not all the time but we will heal. you're so precious. you did not deserve to have your innocence stolen from you. you did not deserve the shackles of modesty culture & purity culture. you had so much taken from you, and you dont even realize how much until now. 23 years later, you will be loved by a really good man. he is gentle, kind, patient, tender with all your wounded spaces. this will be when you realize just how deep the loss of innocence affected you, bc you're scared to marry him. you can't imagine intimacy beyond a certain point no matter how much he protects your boundaries & honors you by setting ones you didn't even know you needed.
i know you aren't angry. not at him. the day might come. i don't know, i haven't found it yet. instead i'm angry at the church culture that made so many of us childhood sex abused kids hold dark secrets. i'm angry that he was abused by someone amd thought it was love. i'm angry that even at 10 years old, you beleived his feelings were more important then yours. that you had alresdy absorbed the lie from hell giving you responsibility to protect men at all costs. one on hand, it shows what a good heart you had that you still cared and didn't want to hurt him. but on the other i see so clearly the evil our culture does when it tells little girls that they exist to be "good" by keeping the peace. what a weight on those tiny, bony shoulders. i wish i could hug you. i wish i could protect you. i can't.
but i will heal you. i don't judge you, or blame you. i don't hate you. i'm going to do whatever it takes to help you let go of the shame, the pain, the fear you inherited this day. { r }http://www.blogger.com/profile/02662355146132180455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-49068118773746755732021-04-18T14:12:00.003-04:002021-04-18T14:12:54.598-04:00the january i was 23 <p><i>*notes scribbled in my phone recently after listening to podcasts about the white supremacy rampant in evangelical christianity* </i></p><p>i think that day i went to the garage and screamed at the sky, i was becoming an atheist. i was desperately pleading with God to show up bc i didn't believe he existed anymore, bc he hadn't met me. bc i could explain every supposed spiritual comfort with science, with delusion.</p><p>i felt fooled</p><p>abandoned</p><p>desolate</p><p>i was overwhelmed by loss and i didn't have a language or a means of articulating what was happening in my brain. i didn't choose God bc i was so sure He was real. i loudly proclaimed & inked it on my skin that I was choosing him bc i was so afraid he wasn't. </p><p>i was so scared, so lost.</p><p>so i forced it.</p><p>i thought i could choose to believe and silence all my questions but</p><p>i couldn't.</p><p>i truly believe i found God again somehow in ukraine. </p><p>but i think what i'm walking through now is the fallout of having really been an agnostic or an atheist for a long long time. i couldn't admit it to myself, bc i would mentally break down.</p><p>i couldn't lose the people i love. </p><p>i couldn't lose meaning & purpose </p><p>and i couldn't find those without a God.</p><p><br /></p><p>i think i'm trying to return, but that's why it feels like square one</p><p>i don't know what i believe </p><p>i don't know what is real or true </p><p>i don't know if i believe i can even know truth </p><p>i don't know if i really believe in God</p><p>i want to?</p><p>but it doesn't feel like i do. </p><p>can you just choose to believe something is real bc you want it to be? </p><p>is that faith? </p><p>or is that just a desperate need for control? </p><p>do i really want to? </p><p>or is it more terrifying to believe God exists?</p><p>what is the honest truth about me? </p><p>maybe i can contain both of my selves. the rational side of my mind which cannot deny scientific evidence, & doesn't feel a religion that requires it could be healthy or true; and the emotional (?) side of my mind which one time experienced God, and wants him to be real. who wants to truly believe and not just keep trying so damn hard to choose it. </p><p>maybe God isn't the problem?</p><p>maybe it's the fundamentalism & evangelical tradition that asked me to deny science and not allow my mind/ brain to work. maybe it's american christianity. maybe God uses both. maybe i can exist in both planes?</p><p>when i consider whether or not i truly believe in God in this moment, i don't know. </p><p>part of me thinks no, and is relieved.</p><p>part of me thinks yes & is comforted.</p><p>none of me is afraid of hell. (interesting... because at many moments i am)</p><p>one thing i have somehow come to hold dearly close to my heart is that IF god is truly real; he loves us. he is merciful & gracious beyond what we can fathom. He is not angry at us individually. He would not condemn me but meet me or lead me back. if God is true, I have no fear bc he will hold me still. </p><p>if he isn't, i can still live a brave, beautiful life. still see beauty & choose goodness. and when it ends, i will be blissfully ignorant. that's why i can't commit to a church-- i feel like i'm lying bc i don't believe in all the things the church proclaims to. </p><p>i would define God as "a being who is all-powerful, who created/ invented & sustains the universe." </p><p>I believe he is loving. or maybe i *want* to believe he is loving, kind, compassionate. i don't know if i can ever believe the bible is inerrant...it was authored & translated by men with their own ideologies. can it be true but not intended to be 100% literal or prescriptive? does every word have to be interpreted as literal fact? or can we just see it as a messy history book that shows us a little of who God is & how to have a relationship with him. maybe much of the barriers between humans encountering God + all of the damage, violence, power-hungry political parts of a religion come from a human misuse of God's idea and not God Himself.</p><p>I want to know god. but. i do. NOT. want to return to an intellectual faith, to a rigid doctrinal box he has to fit into. i want nothing to do with calvinism, or with anti-lgbtq+ folks, or bible beltness, or with the all lives matter crowd. </p><p>i don't want to be driven by a fear of being wrong. </p><p>I just want to know Who He is, & I want to believe he is g o o d. I want to be someone who helps others encounter the loving God who brings hope & peace. </p><p><br /></p><p>what will i do if i discover God isn't loving?</p><p>what if he is angry, harsh, demanding? </p><p>what will i do if i find he is rigid & requires adherence to laws & rules no one can keep?</p>{ r }http://www.blogger.com/profile/02662355146132180455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-87518248087139191402018-09-20T02:17:00.000-04:002018-11-07T02:18:25.992-05:00charlie brownyou're listening, focusing on the top of her head as she leans out over the fence to avoid looking at either of us. this story isn't pretty, or neat, or easy to tell. her voice rises & falls with the rhythm of the waves. i'm trying to focus, trying to listen.<br />
but i can see your face.<br />
<br />
so i am lost somewhere in one of my universes.<br />
the one i hate the most,<br />
where puzzle pieces & numbers & fragments of color that i don't recall even seeing, much less taking note of; suddenly collide into a picture. an image i didn't see coming. (how is it that i never see these truth bombs coming until they are fully formed in my mind? who invented this instant connect-the-dots processor? can i return it for a refund? i'd rather realize things slowly or not at all. the human mind needs time to figure these things out thank you very much)<br />
<br />
so many small gestures & individual words & moments of frustration make sense now.<br />
i get it.<br />
i don't know what i'm supposed to do with this?<br />
but i'm pretty sure you don't know that you just showed me your entire hand.<br />
she doesn't either.<br />
-at least one of us is oblivious-<br />
<br />
it kills me & i have to look at my hands to avoid your eyes as they soften at the edges, taking her pain deep into your heart. i don't know how you do it. to love someone who seems so oblivious and impossible to be with from a distance is one thing. that's a fantasy, an infatuation; it's fed by imagination and not flesh and blood. it's not the kind of slow burn that has depth in reality.<br />
<br />
how strong you must be. of course. it's never the humans who look tough or talk tough. it's the quiet steady ones. like you.<br />
it must take a hero's effort to live as you are. to love someone up close, to know them, to absorb their flaws & reflect the beauty they don't know they have back at them... and not ever be allowed to express all of your heart.<br />
<br />
she finished her story. you're responding with a neutrality that confirms all that i just saw. and everything slips at once back into what it was before. externally, but i will not forget.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />{ r }http://www.blogger.com/profile/02662355146132180455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-3067111148554702018-08-24T16:59:00.003-04:002018-08-24T17:12:51.176-04:00i can't articulate but i can vomit english i have so many ideas, moments, snapshots, thoughts locked inside. pivotal & mundane, deep & lighthearted. all of it wants out, all of it i'm afraid i'll forget; none of it seems to have language.<br />
<br />
where is the expression format for those of us who struggle with words?<br />
<br />
sometimes i wonder how such a (supposedly) small human can hold so much. at least, i am told that i am small, people try to pick me up--which ends badly for them-- (i'm a grown-ass woman what.the.hell do they expect?!) or ask how i reach things & tell me "your feet can't be tired you're so tiny they carry no weight" (america explain) & the whole world can see over my head & also runs me over because of that last phrase. in fact one of my friends recently picked up my disgusting work shoes because he couldn't believe how little it was. i don't *feel* small. this is my skin, and i can't compare it to any other skin. it's always been a funny reminder, like what? oh yeah that's right i guess i am a smol human? when it's mentioned. still surprises me.<br />
<br />
maybe this is why i forget. maybe it's because i'm like an iceberg. so little above the waterline, sooooo very much underneath. humans would probably shipwreck if they tried to come in contact with it.<br />
i don't know. none of this is making sense, is it? none of it appears connected and i should build a bridge. i know how to, you know. just like i know how to avoid run-on sentences and abstract metaphors that the concrete world around me stares at like Galileo would stare at the Hubble. i guess i just don't care. knowledge doesn't have to be applied every time. yeah? \all i know is i am reaching historic levels of filled up. all the alarms have burned out, so instead of flashing lights & sirens we just have a dull, pulsing sensation. kinda the same way the bass in a club next door throbs into the wall when you lean on it in the pizza store at 2am.<br />
how can one be so empty, and yet so full? i have nothing to give. and everything to release.<br />
<br />
i guess what's really trapped in here is emotion.<br />
<br />
feelings.<br />
<br />
ugh i hate those things. i never know what to do with them, the illogical tiny demons with minds of their own. except nothing makes sense so i don't think "minds" is the appropriate word. maybe it's instinct. i feel like humans should have evolved beyond instinct by now. wasn't that the point of intelligent design, hey God? meaning & purpose & creating & growing & bringing order to chaos? or something. i will delve into theoreticals far beyond my intelligence & education level long before i will face my demon-children. oops i meant feels.<br />
to be fair to me, i have made efforts. i've given them space & time, i've read books from good authors and articles by my favorites. i've written--ok tried to write-- and i've listened to podcasts & songs that usually move me. but nothing comes, nothing flows.<br />
<br />
instead it tries to leak out at the most inappropriate times. when Oliver the barista says "you know, you are the kinda person who can say the most blunt hard truths and yet never offend because you love people, and they know it, they know they are safe with you and that they matter." it climbs up my throat when i'm kneeling on a hospital floor, grounding a withdrawing patient so we won't have to tie her down. you can't afford to cry when your eyes are locked with someone who couldn't believe in the dawn and tried to miss it and is looking at you as if you are the only lifeline they have. in that moment, as the overdose leaves their system; i might be. it stings my eyes when my friend sends me a song that goes out like a flare into territory i long ago walked away from, lighting up the skeletons of bridges i burned with napalm and can't afford to rebuild. it throbs in my temples when my sister looks me in the eye and speaks aloud her deepest regret, one so tender & deep that i never knew the burden of it til now. it aches in my chest, threatening to rip the very muscles when my grandfather talks about living without the chemicals barely containing his mortality at bay. i choke on it, looking down so my adventure buddy won't figure out that i'm playing blind when i see the kindness he's extending, because if i take it i will shatter beyond repair.<br />
<br />
it won't show up when i'm safe, when my falling apart won't hurt another. it only wants to escape when it can't. so i keep shutting it down, locking it away. swallowing. standing on this thin ice as the cracks spread father and father. i know i won't make it to shore. but somehow i can't fall through yet either.<br />
<br />
and yet i come up so empty when i'm needed, when someone needs my brain or my heart. i want to be there, and i try. but my soul is looking out the window longing for 24 hours when nobody needs me. terrified of letting them down. vocalizing that maybe, maybe i am not the best one for holding other's lifelines at the moment. but they always hand them back.<br />
<br />
and i can't find a rock to tie them onto.{ r }http://www.blogger.com/profile/02662355146132180455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-22626204855421006962018-04-01T15:58:00.000-04:002018-11-07T02:14:27.128-05:00don’t hang lightbulbs from thread <div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">“what are your dreams for your thirties?” </span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">i know she’s talking to me but it hits me with the force of a stone fist to the chest. how can she drop such an earth-shattering sentence in the middle of yoga? i glance at our bird to my right, buying time. </span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">“me or liliya?”</span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">“you, obviously.”</span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">“oh.”</span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">my thoughts scramble as liliya laughs and says something about how she has two years left how can she think about that yet? </span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">“i’ve known what my goal for thirty was since i was 27.” i say, trying to stop the words bc i <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">can’t</span>—don’t want —to explain them. now both friends are looking at me expectantly and i.... am empty. my mind is a mess bc feelings. all these emotions of pain & regret & the deep excruciating ache of loss swirls up to my throat. the familiar suffocation of T I M E slowly covers my heart. </span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">i have several flashes of realization at the same time:</span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">these girls love me. </span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">i have to face this grief.</span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">i can’t run from it anyway.</span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">none of the trite excuses for life goals coming to mind will be convincing. </span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">speak. the truth. </span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">i cant see any other way out. </span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">“i wanted to be through counseling, and healthy. whole.” the last word slips out as a whisper. i duck my head and pretend to stretch. playing it off as if i wanted to surf better or learn watercolors. i hope they don’t know i have tears hovering behind my pupils, bc one hug or kindness and i will spill over. i don’t want the pacific swells of this never-ending heartache swallowing and drowning any other hearts but mine. i don’t want to explain. how so tired / no, <span style="font-style: italic;">fucking exhausted</span> / i am of the attention trauma gets. it’s bullshit, that i’ve been working through it in stages for the past FOUR YEARS. before that, i was living it more than i wasn't. i just wanted it gone, i wanted a new focus, a new chapter. i linger on the thought that i can just act that way...but i’ve learned the hard way that you can’t just decide you’ve moved on. every new page you try to turn sticks to the last; the wet ink of abuse survivor seeps through to stain them all before you can write your new self upon them. </span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">i swallow all this deep in my throat. </span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">“anyway, i’ll find new goals. what are yours?” </span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 19.1px;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="color: #a2c4c9; font-family: inherit;">the conversation turns. i bury the rage & chasm of my heart, stepping back into the familiar mind space. but deep down i know there isn’t any escaping. why would i hope? wtf did i let myself believe things could change? that i could move on? ever have a life that isn’t constantly being dragged back to face this ugliness? i foolishly hung a lightbulb in my heart, and with one question i watched it hit the cement of reality. i’ll have to find all those pieces. </span></div>
{ r }http://www.blogger.com/profile/02662355146132180455noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-36619819220138215292017-10-22T17:27:00.000-04:002018-05-20T20:01:34.069-04:00front steps<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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i sat on the front steps in a corner of brooklyn, too close to government housing to be "cool" but too close to hipsters to be really "scary". trying to read the pages of my new-used book. sun was warm, breeze was cold, & i was really hoping to embrace sunday afternoon.<br />
<br />
except it was hard to focus on the words. my damn heart wouldn't be silent. so instead i give up. look up. i see you 5 houses down, also reading on your stoop but my glance keeps going. i think i hate that you can focus and i can't at the moment.<br />
<br />
breathe. if you can't escape your head, you might as well live in it. dive into the moment. there's a story for all the souls sharing this corner of the world with me. i invent some, deduce others:<br />
<br />
the two old men playing chess in the housing project gated yard a few sidewalk cracks to the left? they've been enemies since grade school. one traveled the world as a grip for a documentary filmmaker, but he's come home to care for his aging sister. the other lived a quiet steady life here on this corner for 76 years. he sacrificed to send all 3 kids to college, refusing so far to live with any of them despite their asking. with all the history and brutality of life behind them, they've made peace. & become a sources of intellectual stimulus & comfort for one another.<br />
<br />
the mexican family next door is attempting an afternoon siesta, but little kids won't stop fighting. mom + dad look at each other with tired eyes & tired shoulders, wondering if there will EVER be a day these kids love each other. or listen, or take naps again? deeper wonderings of whether they'll make it, if this country wasn't a mistake...if they're really safer here than back home? lie unspoken.<br />
<br />
the elderly Jamaican grandmothers below me are loudly arguing about the book they're reading. i can't tell if they all equally hate the book or if they all hate different parts? but the mixed accents create a rhythm within the english words that i could move to.<br />
<br />
the barista across the street comes out to wipe down the tables next to the college student for the 32nd time this hour. (hint: nobody has sat at them since i came out here.) she's been saving & scraping for another trip, somewhere less wild than Morocco this time. maybe france? or poland? she loves her nomad life, but deep down she wonders sometimes if maybe she couldn't be happy settled down. like all her friends with college degrees and boys or girls they come home to at night. the blond student still doesn't look up from his laptop, totally oblivious. his small fluff dog can't *quite* reach the water bowl. she slides it closer with her foot, looks at the back of college boy's head and spins back into the coffee shop.<br />
<br />
the guy reading is apparently having the same problem i am, because now his book is closed with chin in his hands like he's solving the worst physics problem. except we make eye contact, and he ducks his head so fast it hits his knee & i'm laughing. i wonder what back story he invented for the new white girl? with her ripped jeans & grey tank top too light for the wind, scuffed vans & hair messier than the G train stop one block south. i don't think anyone's ever given me a story before? but then joe is calling "you can NOT go out with me like that, you'll scare all the cute boys away" and i stand up to get pretty-ish. he finds his book & his bravery and looks back, so i wave when we make eye contact, turning into the doorway too fast to see if he waved back like some cheesy children's book.<br />
<br />
i really want to know what i look like through another reader's eyes. readers, we all kinda write a little. with our too-deep intellects & our too-wide imaginations. but i'm only here another 17 hours.{ r }http://www.blogger.com/profile/02662355146132180455noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-81305884767093409002017-08-03T12:43:00.001-04:002018-05-20T20:07:45.349-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
twenty nine. two months in, and i'm thinking this is going to be a hard year.<br />
but one that i hope proves to be integral to growth, to healing; to looking back next year from a better place.<br />
<br />
it seems i can't heal emotionally until i confront the lion in the corner. it's the scariest of all my demons. it's the pieces of me that were most damaged by abuse and that were at one time most important. the fragments of memory still hurt when i bump into them.<br />
<br />
i don't know how to begin, where to start, what this looks like.<br />
but i know i need it. i can't wait anymore. i can't let fear keep me from moving forward.<br />
<br />
it's a strange thing, that i can't move on emotionally until i sort out who i am spiritually. the two shouldn't be connected in my head. but here they are. proclaiming loudly that they're as intertwined as clouds in a sky. i can't have one without the other.<br />
<br />
i am terrified. i'm more scared of God than i am my father at this point. i'm afraid to let Him in. i desperately wanted healing in this relationship for so long, but now that time has dragged on and on i wonder why i wanted it. i'm dreading it. i'm afraid of what it will cost, for every victory and ground i covered spiritually in the past has had a high price to pay. i used to believe it was worth it. but now i wonder.....because i didn't even get to keep that ground or those victories. i lost everything. so much time that looks wasted from this perspective.<br />
<br />
am i going to lose what precious little i have left?<br />
am i going to lose my sanity, my rationality?<br />
the lightheartedness of my personality that is so slowly coming back to life?<br />
<br />
am i going to have to go back to living such an examined life that it suffocates my joy?<br />
i know the heart of my faith is repenting and being made new. and part of me misses that. but mostly all i remember is struggle and hurting and you know what? i'm too tired to go back to that.<br />
maybe that's because it was unhealthy?<br />
<br />
but then i look at those i know still practicing their faith, still walking with God as i used to; and it looks like a lot of legalism still. some of them have joy, have peace; some of them make it look like what i want. but do i get a say in how it goes? or is this a journey where i have to submit & suffer whatever consequences? it is so subjective, so intuition-based, so feely & "hearing from God" looks so drastically different in different lives and i want concrete, i want logic, i want knowing. i don't want to live in a fog anymore. i can't stand the thought of a church. God no. i can't live with every person thinking they have a voice in my life, saying it's pride if i disagree, being constantly challenged and second-guessed. i don't mind being challenged if there's an open end or the freedom to agree to disagree; but i find that is more common with my muslim friends or friends with no faith. i sacrificed myself for community once. i can't do that again. the community kept me in the pit that was suffocating me.<br />
is there every any freedom? can i actually walk in grace if i walk with Him or is that just a concept we throw out but never bring to play?<br />
i can't say these things to anyone. my agnostic & atheist friends won't get it. my christian (ugh. that word and the baggage it carries--we have got to come up with a new name to separate the genuine, beautiful Jesus-followers from the ugly, morals-above-people hateful religious people)<br />
<br />
i don't want to lose the people i love.<br />
i don't want to get sucked into another cult like situation.<br />
i don't trust myself to interpret the bible, to know if i'm truly walking by the Spirit or just making shit up, i don't trust God's heart or intentions or will; i don't trust His words. I trust a very few of His people. 4, to be exact.<br />
<br />
i miss the girl who loved God. who believed she was loved. who lived out of that & for a very brief season of 21-23 lived in abundant joy because of it. but damn, she bought into a lot of lies. she was fooled and chained by things pretending to be of God but weren't; and her teachable humble heart cost her sanity for a solid year. i am so so so afraid of going back to her. the beautiful pieces were not worth the agony.<br />
the thing is, i'm afraid creating a real relationship with God will be going back.<br />
but...ok, lets think about this for a minute babe.<br />
didn't you always feel torn back then too? weren't there SO MANY little voices inside you screaming that there was more, that the way your church was doing the God thing was off, that if God was love your life should be love? and all the formulas & walls & un-graciousness things you were taught, didn't you fight against them & reject them?<br />
*yeah.*<br />
<br />
so maybe...maybe this will be different.<br />
maybe you will be whole.<br />
because maybe, you weren't wrong. maybe it was right all along-your own gut instinct- and you just couldn't break free from the boxes being stacked & built around you.<br />
maybe you can be just a jesus follower. and love Him. & let Him love you. maybe He doesn't want to crush your soul under the weight of all you're doing wrong; maybe that was them. not Him. & maybe He doesn't want others crushed under the weight of expectations & judgments & "shoulds". maybe He just wants them to be loved, accepted, given radical grace. can you do that if you're not free to be vulnerable? um nope. can you be vulnerable with all this baggage shit? again, NOPE.<br />
<br />
so maybe you'll grow even better at what you do best now, loving the people outside the box.<br />
(bc deep down, isn't that what you're afraid of losing the most?)<br />
maybe *you* can re-define "christian".<br />
<br />
what. crazy talk. ugh it's so ick. i don't know.<br />
i know this is a lot of emotional vomit, but i need a safe space to do that in. so here it is. all the confusion & ugliness & irrationality of my fear & bitterness talking. all the thoughts i keep hidden and don't allow to surface. they need to escape so i stop choking on them. this is what i've been running from; this ugliness.{ r }http://www.blogger.com/profile/02662355146132180455noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-1841452746778850192017-07-08T14:40:00.001-04:002018-01-25T16:50:12.285-05:00to the first good man i knewdamn i miss you.<br />
<br />
it's been 8 years now, and there are many days i don't. there are times i still think "i want to show perpa this!" but it's decreased to a wee blip of missing most days.<br />
<br />
not today. (will the non-linear chaos of grief ever stop surprising me?)<br />
<br />
today it's the kind of sting that makes me breathe a little slower, as if it's a true physical ache and shallower inhales will ease it. today, it stabs me with a fierce shock, the way a mountain lake ices warm skin like a seizure. i wish i could jump in my car and speed my way across the st john's... i call it the house that built me, you know from the miranda lambert song? i need it.<br />
<br />
i need a forehead kiss. & your hug, smelling like outdoors & sunshine, wood dust & old spice; stability. i need a cup of coffee. the strong black brew with cream to make it "blonde & bitter". (i still can't recreate that perfection). in my favorite mug. mint green with the handle that curves into my hand just right...grandma keeps it on the bottom shelf above the microwave tucked in the back left corner. i need to sit next to you on the back porch. under models the airplanes you worked on swaying in the breeze. it'll be warm, and the swamp will be alive with cicadas, frogs & the occasional splash of gators. i need stories. about life & air force & Nasa, loving grandma since tenth grade, the shenanigans you & richard pulled in that tiny upstate NY town. i see it all in my head knowing my way around the streets like i do. i want to ask about stories you don't share: the gyroscope you designed for bombers in the gulf war, the shuttle engineering, the soccer scholarship you gave up so you could get a job to provide for your younger siblings instead. i need your steadfastness, your unconditional love, your ridiculous sense of humor, the way you get restless and have to take the truck on an errand nobody but us finds necessary. i need to sight down your rifle. feel the weighted balance and my own capability as i come *this close* to matching your target hits. i need to hear you talk about the difference between violence & protecting yourself. the weight of responsibility a weapon brings; the difference between outside force vs. inner character. damn, i need to laugh. i need to make you laugh, watch your eyes crinkle as you throw your head back. i need to look at your hands, and think how i hope mine are the same when i'm old. capable, calloused, tough. but still gentle with kittens & grandma & dogs & grandkids who are throwing fits over dropped blueberries. i need you. how am i supposed to live un-tethered, without you? oh i know i've been doing just fine for a while now. you would say.<br />
but today i'm worn thin, i'm hollow, i'm fragile. i desperately want the safety net of your kindness.<br />
<br />
i need to tell you so much. i think you know i loved you fiercely. we had the same language for that. but i had no idea at 21 how much of who i am was from you. you saved me from believing all men are monsters. you were the first good man i really knew, the best kind of man. i can't find words for the powerful influence having you in my life created. you encouraged my intelligence and resiliency; fostered my independence & courage. your life gave me the values i still carry today. you made me believe i was both capable enough to take good care of myself; and valuable enough to be well cared for. your impact is immeasurable.<br />
<br />
i'm sorry i wasn't there that day.<br />
i'm sorry i went home after work instead of going straight to the hospital.<br />
i'm sorry i left early the day before, but my heart was bleeding up my throat and i couldn't keep it from seeping out, so i left before you could see me cry.<br />
i'm sorry i was too young to have the right words.<br />
i'm sorry i was so angry at you for leaving for a year. i just couldn't bear the loss of you both so quickly, when my world was already on fire.<br />
<br />
<i>"i miss you. they say i'll be ok; but i'm not going to, ever, get over you." </i><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-38489942824570053332017-07-07T00:49:00.001-04:002018-04-12T12:12:42.726-04:00perspective is a lovely hand to hold <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<b>"Celebration when your plan is working? Anyone can do that. But when you realize the story of your life could be told a thousand different ways, that you could tell it over and over as a tragedy, but you chose to call it an epic; that's when you start to see what celebration is. When what you see in front of you is so far outside of what you dreamed, but you have the belief, the boldness, the courage to call it beautiful instead of calling it wrong that's celebration." </b> __shauna niequist<br />
<br />
<br />
how i want this courage, this kind of fierce, joyful defiance.<br />
help me let go of my perspective so it may unbend & flex into something that can find celebration. may i find the epic within the ugliness. may i see beautiful here, in the uncertainty of my tomorrows. may i create restful solitude from within the loneliness. may i trade in the hollow for healing; the cynical & bitter for wide-eyed hope. fill me.<br />
here, in the in-between;<br />
let me become a woman who creates space for celebration that invites others in. a place that doesn't compromise honesty but holds hope. let the lost, the hurting, the devastated & shattered find You in me. find shelter, find comfort, find the courage to see the sky.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
"where there is hatred, may i bring love</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
where there is discord, may i bring harmony</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
where there is error, may i bring truth</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
where there is doubt, may i bring faith</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
where there is despair, may i bring hope</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
where there are shadows, may i bring light</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
where there is sadness, may i bring joy. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
grant that i may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
not to be understood as to understand, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
not to be loved as to love..."</div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-32337033337334203342017-06-27T18:51:00.000-04:002017-06-27T18:51:33.086-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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i just finished brain on fire.<br />
<br />
everybody should read it. it sparked a lot of thought about things i already think about--how to fight against mental illness stigma, how to create greater empathy from the neuro-"typical" of us. how to understand better & reach out to include better & what are the best ways to communicate love to those who battle mental illness. i think this book could do some good in that direction.<br />
<br />
<br />
but also.<br />
damn.<br />
<br />
i never had autoimmune encephalopathy i never hallucinated or experienced psychosis. i'm very grateful for this, and i wouldn't say that i have come close to experiencing what susannah did. it's incomparable.<br />
<br />
but the first part of the book...shocked me with how releatable it was? the memories it stirred. i know what it's like to cave in, to lose pieces of your thought patterns and feel disconnected from your own neurons, to hide it for so long until you appear to flip personalities overnight but really you've fallen apart at the seems for a long time now. i just...yeah.<br />
<br />
there's a lot of that to process.<br />
and several people to thank. i thought was incredibly hard to love my whole life. (sure, mostly r/t abuse & for all the wrong reasons. i'm still difficult but for different reasons now lol) BUT what i didn't appreciate back then was that it could cause pain. that it probably hurt those i loved. the ones i let in were my closest, longest friends; i'm sorry they had to see me so devastated, broken, defeated, fragile. unable to sleep or eat or function as i used to. i believe i have communicated how grateful i am that they stood by me. but; i better understand with some distance just how that could have been. how mentally ill i was. & i don't think i can ever thank them enough. i jokingly refer to it as "that year i lost my mind" but truly, i did. it was a mental breakdown.<br />
<br />
i haven't taken my healthy brain and functioning mind for granted ever since.<br />
especially as there are still parts of me missing.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-62334634489065512562017-06-21T22:13:00.001-04:002017-06-28T22:35:08.222-04:00how i pray // letters to my ceiling i told You to come after me.<br />
i challenged you, last year; to prove you loved me. remember God? even though i say i believe you died on a cross to save me from myself. from striving for morality but always too broken, from the failures & mistakes & chains of my humanity, the sharp taste of death being an end. but i asked, if you really want me? well that feels like a fairytale. it seems distant and strange. so even though i have the sacrifice of your life.<br />
<br />
i demanded more.<br />
<br />
because i didn't<br />
i didn't believe you would respond<br />
i thought you would say:<br />
"you're ungrateful<br />
look what i have already done?<br />
why can't you accept it<br />
just open your eyes<br />
i already proved my love<br />
you are selfish, blind, lazy<br />
too ignorant<br />
or too willful<br />
too scared?<br />
to receive it. why would i waste any more on you?<br />
there's a limit.<br />
you are too much."<br />
<br />
i'm still holding my breath for the harshness.<br />
<br />
after all the tiny love letters, all the individual alphabet pieces spelling it out<br />
patiently<br />
slowly<br />
so. very. gently<br />
i can't...my mind fragments. cause you didn't say any of that.<br />
instead<br />
you say i'm... worth it.<br />
worth so much? extravagance.<br />
<br />
worth pursuing--no matter how fast i run away, despite my fists pounding your chest, despite the bricks of fear and pain and anger i keep throwing at<br />
you. despite my blind ignorant blame. all my dishonesty, all my rage that we both know belongs at a different door.<br />
<br />
you act like you think i am worth convincing<br />
loving<br />
above and beyond the basic<br />
more than life and death?<br />
<br />
it's like you...understand?<br />
have compassion?<br />
acknowledge that i am fragile?<br />
<br />
what the hell do i do with this.<br />
<br />
because i see you<br />
oh God, i see you.<br />
you're running after me<br />
you love me fiercely<br />
you will stop at nothing, use anyone, anything; to show that you love me.<br />
<br />
i'm terrified<br />
and relieved<br />
devastated by a calm understanding that all you ask of me is relaxing. letting go. easing the weight off. fragment by fragment<br />
you want my shattered heart<br />
<br />
mostly... i'm afraid. but i still want it?<br />
<br />
your love<br />
is<br />
terrifying.<br />
<br />
please win.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-4032211013034616052017-06-15T01:30:00.000-04:002018-05-20T20:10:21.358-04:00hurricanesthis isn't supposed to be like this.<br />
<br />
i'm the bad guy in this scenario, i hurt you. unintentionally. but, if there's blame to lay somewhere my door is the only one fitting.<br />
<br />
i shouldn't have this war between mind & heart. my heart shouldn't be acting like it's broken. i know it seemed disconnected when you asked. but i really was thinking about grace. how much i don't deserve you. how incapable i am in this moment of my life to give you what you deserve. you didn't find me at my worst; but i'm still climbing up from it. i can't pretend that's ok. i can't give you part of me, when you should have all. i can't give you pieces when i would want all. i also couldn't say that if i had ever for one moment considered that an option...i don't know. it never crossed my mind. there's a lot of feeling hiding behind the things i don't allow my mind to access. damn... but even then i wouldn't have let myself fall for you. i can't be so selfish. i can't take advantage of your sincerity. you're not some little boy playing at romance. damn this would be a hell of a lot easier if you were. i tell myself you don't mean what you say, but you seem to have such a steady heart it makes it difficult to believe. you're intentional & a thinker & hyper-focus so as much as i'd like to pretend it's not true, you do know what you want. why and how did you ever see it in me? that's the part i'm confused about. you were right. i know i said i wasn't confused, but that was only in relation to where i needed to go with this. about whether or not we should still be friends at the level we'd grown into. i know i'm not in love with you, i don't like you as more than a friend. but i will forever be confused as to how you maintained feelings after knowing me? sometimes i think you looked at me and saw me as i truly am and chose to just care for me no matter where it went. but that's impossible. ? i created a sub-universe in my head (what's that word?) of my own years ago and i've been living in it ever since. where my armor was impenetrable. nobody could be attracted to me. not really. not with any depth or heart or reality.<br />
this seemed fucking real.<br />
i don't... i can't imagine that kind of courage.<br />
do you have any idea how much you flipped my entire universe off it's axis? <br />
you think too much of me. you're not naive, but you are innocent. you wouldn't if you had more experience with women, i think; you wouldn't choose me. not because i'm less than you or not good enough. but there's better. there are others farther along in their pursuit of being their best selves. women who are richer in character, who aren't divided within, aren't in a crises with their spirituality, who are capable of loving you as well as a human can, who aren't so afraid or difficult or stubborn. homeboy lets be real a minute, i've protected you from the worst of me so far but that won't last if you get much closer. i've held my tongue all the times our triggers collide, all the times you project on me. but that can't go on forever. not to mention you seem to have a precious heart? if true, you shouldn't settle for someone who has no idea what she's doing with hearts.<br />
<br />
i regret all the things i couldn't say. i couldn't let my heart start beating. it felt like being frozen between time and space and pausing there, a thousand thoughts racing in my mind and my heart waking up to things that had never been considered. i don't know how i found words. it's surreal, like a code. where all the thoughts of heart and mind are battling each other but you see with startling clarity exactly what needs to be done. so you do just that. focus in on what's best for the person you're fighting for until all else fades out.<br />
but you know there is going to be hell to pay after.<br />
<br />
i wish i had asked for time to think & process before saying goodbye. i wish i had been a little more practical. had a few questions. i wish i had told you that i needed you for the season i had your friendship. i was drowning in isolation, unwilling to pull myself out or even unable to see that i needed too. til you told me what it looks like from outside. you're the reason i reached out to my squad, i was shutting them out and decided to just let the deepest, most powerful and amazing friends fade out of my life because the long-distance thing was too painful. but your words gave me courage to see the depth of my own need. what damage it would do to my soul. i knew all along they were worth it; but i let myself pretend to forget. i wish i'd said that you reminded me to stop running from my own depth. that your conversations re-ignited my passion for pushing in to life with all i have. i was lingering in the shallows, avoiding myself and letting my world stay in a numb greyscale. your intensity, so like my own, was a catalyst reminder that numb is worse than pain. i missed thinking deeply. missed creating space to write and process, missed engaging with the world on the level i'm capable of. i was on the ropes, and you kicked me back into the ring. i needed tangible challenges to overcome and remember what i'm made of, and you took me places i could physically fight out my fears. i wish i had said over and over until you believed me that this wouldn't work because i'm emotionally unavailable and incapable right now. not because you lack. not because of any deficit or deep flaws in you. i mean, we both have flaws a plenty. but who's to say if those would work themselves out for our growth or be incompatible? who knows if i could get over this insane age gap and not feel like i'm stealing time from you? things you won't know unless you give it a shot. while i'm being honest, you've got the kind of qualities i admire. steadiness, patience, at least with me? & sometimes your harshness dissolves into this gentleness that always catches me off guard bc i don't see it coming. maybe i could lean on you, and maybe you wouldn't crumble. but can you lean back? bc it has to be a weight sharing. you earned my respect with your handling of this and a level of trust. i instinctively knew i was safe with you, (physically) and for once in my life i went with my gut. i don't regret that. maybe i do, a little, for your sake.<br />
because if i find myself aching in my chest? damn. i can't bear to think what you must be fighting through. maybe not. maybe it was all in your head, and it's easy to let it go. maybe you're only attracted to me because i make you feel superior. maybe it's only that i'm more fubar than you. maybe i'ts nothing real and this will fade quickly. god i hope so for your sake. hearts are tricky little bastards.<br />
<br />
i just thought maybe if i vomited all my feelings and confusion out into the void without edit or correction it may help. it's hard to let my heart take the driver's seat like this. my logical brain won't be silent, it wants to jump in to every other word. silence the emotion that doesn't make sense because it's not reflective of reality. it's not accurate. but rationality already won the day, so my heart needs this moment to exist. i'm flying blind here. i've never been pursued because i was valued for myself. i've never said no from a place that wanted linger on how lovely it could be to say yes. i've never been cared about by someone that didn't have a single damn reason, that i haven't done anything for. i've never been the one to receive all of the blessing at another's expense.<br />
<br />
grace. un-earned, un-deserved favor or approval. that's what i was experiencing. that's what you gave me. i have just been confronted with it, full force. and it knocked me off my feet. i'm at a loss.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-22461963408329867392016-08-15T20:43:00.004-04:002021-04-18T14:25:11.982-04:00life doesn't discriminate <div style="text-align: center;">
<b>"life doesn't discriminate between the sinners & the saints, it takes and it takes and it takes. we keep living anyway--we rise & we fall & we break and we make our mistakes; and if there's a reason I'm still alive when so many have died, than I'm willing to wait for it." </b></div>
<br />
this song, oddly enough gives me hope. (the whole musical has become something of a personal anthem but that's a bizarre twisting path deep into my heart and mind that i'm unable--unwilling to take others down at the moment).<br />
<br />
it's true, life is indiscriminately harsh (with breaks of sunshine and rest). God directly alters at times, yes. but more often He lets the long long leash of natural law & free will play out. as He works within the laws of natural science He created rather than bending them; just so in all of life. He redeems more than He rescues. He's not at odds with the patterns of life. He created it, and when the fall altered it He chose a quiet, slow, deep process of restoration.<br />
it feels unloving. it can look like abandonment from this side of the universe. we don't see much of him because it's in the mundane. instead of removing us or protecting us or erasing the struggle; He creates within it. the force of living crashes against our ideals and our faith. our mental framework is torn down, rebuilt, altered with every loss. every storm, every sunrise, every victory and defeat etch themselves into our psyche and become our stories. we are made into fighters, artists; our souls hallowed to hold deeper, weightier measures of both light and dark.<br />
<br />
life; this living. it's as beautiful as it is achingly devastating. to struggle, to become; these are the essences of humanity. we keep fighting, striving forward to bring order into the messy chaos. creating beauty & joy despite the cracks & the pain. we wrestle with our doubts. we confront the dissonance of eternal promises colliding with earthly realities, find a way to melodize it. we dance with both the facts and the inexplicable, awkward at first until we grow comfortable with not knowing. these are the things that make faith a leap. these are the pieces of mundane that sparkle with meaning. our resilience and our frailty, our grit and our fears, our inability and our ingenuity are valuable. precious, even. because they are products of free will, of room and space to "rise and fall and love and break and make mistakes". to be human is to be "inimitable, an original."<br />
<br />
it's worth it. living is absolutely brutal--but oh, is it worth it.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-80743498114998041072016-06-12T22:57:00.002-04:002021-04-18T14:25:35.324-04:00google has a black ribbon on it's homepage today...and it's for my city.<br />
<br />
<i>((this tragedy isn't truly mine. everything should be centered around the victims, their families and friends; and the close knit LGBT community reeling today. that's why i'm writing this on my private blog. i need to process, i need a safe place to sort myself out away from public eye. but i know it's incredibly inappropriate to claim this has hurt me personally when others have had the fabric of their hearts torn in shreds.)) </i><br />
<br />
what? it feels surreal. Orlando isn't even a real city. i've often thought whoever taglined it "the city beautiful" apparently never traveled to cities like Washington DC, Savannah GA, Cardiff Wales or Vancouver BC, CA. it's always seemed like the kid brother who can't keep up with the big kids. trying to be cool with his untied shoelaces and popsicle-stained mouth, running after the vans-wearing teenagers on their skateboards. like "we've got the basketball team Shaq played for once!" "we're kinda close to Disney World, and there's a fountain in our lake. with swans!" "Our women's soccer team is brand-baby-new but hey--a World Cup champ calls it home!"<br />
but now my little ugly city is running with the big boys and it's not fun at all. we're on the map for a horrific act of violence that has people in New York City weeping for friends they lost. the largest mass shooting in recent history. i think is what they're calling it. because that's what humans do when they grieve. put things in boxes with labels to keep our sanity inside and chaos outside.<br />
<br />
now let's be honest: i've never really claimed this city until today. i spent the first 8 years of my life close enough to downtown that Lake Eola was the playground date of choice. but when we moved to the country, i embraced it whole-heartedly. at first i couldn't sleep: no gunshots, no sirens, no flashing lights or yelling neighbors? what if the bad guys were super sneaky and quiet out here? what if they broke in and nobody heard or came to help? eventually i realized people didn't steal the hose from your lawn or break into your house just for fun out here. i've been privileged to travel all over N America and the world; when people ask where i'm from in florida i usually say a small town you've never heard of. unless i think you'll never come to the states and find me, then i'll name my small town. because i'm proud of it. i love my community. i get annoyed when i'm traveling with people and they say Orlando (what? eww no i don't live there).<br />
<br />
but today i woke up, and there on my tv was a swat team exiting a building i instantly knew. there was the next door dunkin donuts i used to swing by at 9:08 pm 2-3 nights a week after ballet class in my teens, surrounded by flashing lights. there were bleeding, hurting people being carried out of the first gay club my brother visited. it took a few seconds of panic to remember he's moved out of state, he's safe. otherwise i would have been frantically looking for a text saying "i'm fine, we were at Ibar or Backbooth instead, don't worry." i thought of other names, faces; and hoped they were ok. i wondered if any of his old buddies were part of the carnage, or in the hospital. i worried if he was emotionally ok all those states away.<br />
i imagined the chaos inside that hospital, the very one i'm about to start my own training in. the nurses and techs who were probably still working long after their 12 hellacious hours were over, the surgeons who probably hadn't had a break yet. i could imagine the less sick people in ER for a normal saturday injury seeing things we normally shield from them. because even in a level I center that trains for this, with 53 traumas, who has time to pull a curtain?<br />
i tried not to imagine what the aftermath of 50 dead would be like. but i couldn't stop wondering how difficult it must be to find evidence and document deaths on such a scale. having the necessary detachment interrupted by all those phones ringing over and over and over as a constant reminder of the lives behind the crime scene.<br />
<br />
i feel like i should have more words. profound words, words to offer hope or give insight into the wreckage humanity holds within that makes us capable of such things. but i don't. i only know that i owned this city today. it's not Paris or VA tech; it's home. i can give blood, i can be there for friends affected more personally. i can find something to do with these hands and this heart. i can be a voice--let's not use this as a battering ram. muslims need to feel loved, welcomed, safe. the lgbt community needs to feel embraced, needs us weeping next to them. the only sermon anyone needs to hear is the sermon of messy, honest, costly, sticking-around-when-the-media-gets bored and the people forget love. the God who became man and climbed into our messy hurting world love. Jesus chose the weak, the vulnerable, the wounded as his homeboys. His anger surfaced towards the people who through the first stone--don't be that guy.<br />
<br />
here are some words from people better gifted than i:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/columnists/os-the-sermon-on-pulse-you-didn-t-hear-in-church-20160612-story.html" target="_blank">this article </a><br />
<a href="https://medium.com/@VossFoster/im-a-millennial-and-gun-violence-is-my-normal-4700f4417355#.eojll0po2" target="_blank"><br /></a>
<a href="https://medium.com/@VossFoster/im-a-millennial-and-gun-violence-is-my-normal-4700f4417355#.eojll0po2" target="_blank">this relatable one</a><br />
<a href="https://medium.com/@laurenbrownmd/i-cried-all-day-3bfa7a89c51e#.sksyhyf29" target="_blank"><br /></a>
<a href="https://medium.com/@laurenbrownmd/i-cried-all-day-3bfa7a89c51e#.sksyhyf29" target="_blank">this personal insight </a><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-82171882241571245122016-06-10T00:15:00.001-04:002017-06-28T22:28:52.247-04:00He delights in showing mercy You delight in showing mercy<br />
<br />
<i>delight</i><br />
<br />
it's not a duty, or a chore; you're not angry or annoyed that i need your mercy more than the earth needs rain.<br />
<br />
you are not exacting, frustrated, judgmental. i live under this burden of exact cause and effect. this belief that every action can only add up to it's deserving consequence. that any good or forward motion must be earned and fought for with the absolute best you can give; but even then don't get your hopes up...because your best isn't always enough. there is no entitlement, life owes you nothing and fairness only comes into play when you screw up. punishments and consequences of mistakes always pay out--even though the rewards and fruit for hard work, diligence and effort don't.<br />
<br />
but that's not life with you. it's a perspective i've been partly given and partly created. You are g r a c i o u s. i'm supposed to be free! not only from sin; but from this burden of fear & failure meaning the end of all things. you know me deeper than even i ever will. you hold my past. i am bound to this earth, to this space and time so that my history presses in and threatens to crush me. i can't escape it, i can't rewrite it. but you--you are outside space & time. you're above and beyond gravity and failure and this messy broken chaos. i can give you my past, my failures & mistakes and bad decisions. let them go safely into your hands. you can bring redemption. ha! all this realization over things with little moral weight, with mistakes bringing no harm to anyone but myself and regrets that only i must stare down.<br />
<br />
you can show me mercy. you know that my best doesn't look like what i think it should. but you're ok with that. you love me anyway, and you delight in bringing things i didn't ask for, didn't earn. you can change my endings. mercy. there is grace. there is no fate, no set in stone consequences. i can change the endings. i can rewrite this chapter. i have room and time for movement forwards.<br />
<br />
thank you.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-26156675521456754572016-05-25T23:11:00.003-04:002017-06-28T22:28:52.241-04:00saturn // sleeping at last<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
the courage of stars...</div>
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how light carries on </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
how rare & beautiful it truly is </div>
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that we exist </div>
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i'd give anything to hear, you say it one more time</div>
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the universe was made</div>
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just to be seen by my eyes </div>
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<i>-saturn from space II, Atlas project by </i><a href="http://www.sleepingatlast.com/space-ii" target="_blank"><i>sleeping at last</i> </a></div>
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<br />
(( if only i could couch my thoughts & ideas & emotions in such a vehicle as this. grateful for right-brained artists whose hearts beat out into words. so the left-brainers like me can say "yes! that's my heart, thank you for giving it wings." ))Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-12245976824305326092016-05-25T00:51:00.002-04:002017-07-28T22:07:32.646-04:00all the things i want to say, but can't.<br />
<br />
the stories i've drifted into for a few sentences, the moments another soul hovers between life and death.<br />
<br />
the people i could have helped more, the ones i reached deep down and found a level beyond "all" to give from; and the majority in the middle whom i strove to do my best for.<br />
<br />
family dynamics. loneliness. sometimes the deepest loneliness includes family surrounding you and sometimes it's a singular pronoun for days. the brokenness of wounds that aren't physical but often seem to damage deeper than the physiologic ones i'm treating. the peace that real love and true family brings to chaos and pain and suffering.<br />
<br />
so much i've witnessed...but i have no words. or rather, i have no way to free them. the hawk of my high school days that used to beat around in my chest cavity longing for freedom seems to have returned. i don't know where to begin. i don't know how to put stories that aren't mine to pen.<br />
well i guess in part they're mine. i enter for a sentance, or a paragraph; and then the rest of the story sails on without me. to the ending of the epic or just that chapter. the book is uncharted waters to me. all the build and swells of previous climaxes are storms i didn't weather. waves i never stilled.<br />
<br />
what i'm trying to say is this practice is creating a tension of story inside me. the science and the art of practicing medicine collide within and leave me here. here being a place with a full heart and mind creating a desperate need to write. but trapped with an inability to arrange letters in ways that do justice to the hallowed space i'm allowed into. maybe it's something i'll grow into. maybe one day the stories will find their way out.<br />
<br />
for now, i have to figure out a way to exist in this no man's land. a little tangled.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-52117430681909054302016-05-11T22:24:00.000-04:002017-07-08T13:28:53.082-04:00fractured thoughts because my heart is aching for my friends and few will listen <div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="5845j" data-offset-key="9ac46-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<span data-offset-key="9ac46-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” --Atticus Finch (to kill a mockingbird)</span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I find few things more frustrating than if I open my mouth about my </span></span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">experience</span></span><span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as a woman and a man jumps in to point out all the reasons my reality isn't valid. I shut down faster than an open submarine hatch; but it's not because you're convincing. It's because I'm quick to realize you can't listen. you'll never find empathy when you're more concerned with changing my mind so i don't see you as some sort of monster just because you're male. FYI, if I'm being honest I probably already figured out you're not...See, I have brothers, cousins, best friends who I know are good honest men because action proves character. I've also had men I thought were friends who proved to be the kind who view every woman's body as something made for them. So my judge of character has been honed as if my life depended on it since some day it might. Do you know what that's like? No more than I know what it's like to be a man, surrounded by toxic hyper-masculinity & culture's pressure to stunt and hide your emotions.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span><span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is this how my friends of color feel? Aren't they surrounded by the same voices, the same invalidation? By people who can never *truly* understand their struggles and lives drowning them out with "logic".</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's hard to hear about white privilege. It's hard to swallow that racism still exists. that we don't all experience the same america, the same culture; that equality is still an ideal in so many ways. But the ideal is there, it holds true. It's waiting for us to flesh it out. Waiting for us to define it further, with justice & compassion & liberty. I think if we really wanted it, we would try. I think what most of us really want is the world to re-frame itself to our perspective. To believe easy, softer, false half-truths defined by our own experiences and people like us. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Isn't it better to see reality? Even if it turns out to be yet another perspective; aren't the ideals of equality, justice, our fellow humans' safety and comfort; worth bending for? Worth facing a harsh paradigm shift?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">But doing that means stepping back. shutting up. Being willing to be uncomfortable. Yes, we've all experienced trauma. Yes, white people can be at a disadvantage compared to other humans. but. THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU. There is a time & place for your story. The systemic inequality? We know nothing of it--and it's time for those who do to have center stage.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I want to have the moral courage to go against the crowd, to stand with the marginalized like Atticus. I think a lot of us want that opportunity. I think we have ideas of what that looks like...if we were honest? The opportunity is here. It's now. If Atticus was a real man today? I think he would do a lot of listening & have courage to ask hard questions. When his black brothers and sisters spoke about their experiences; I don't think he would be quick to jump in and rephrase their voice. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">just some of my own thoughts, as my heart bleeds with my friends.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span> <span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><br />
<blockquote style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">
<i>“Language, that most human invention, can enable what, in principle, should not be possible. It can allow all of us, even the congenitally blind, to see with another person’s eyes.”</i></blockquote>
<blockquote style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">
<i>-Dr. Oliver Sacks</i></blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-78945626514622406652016-02-24T03:07:00.000-05:002017-06-28T22:27:04.024-04:00bottle it up<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWTZfya_-zxGApW_3_pjeLWOV3b-KX8w8WmvbiHYb8TDmBP4Ov7OibyjMzM1mCXvnARPZffXwaDTgfmXtUgzMKiGBb4pDXhWHuaAAzEQqsNuuphTpYymxUBKJZSkNvALdZg8ev/s1600/Ukraine_13+%252896%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWTZfya_-zxGApW_3_pjeLWOV3b-KX8w8WmvbiHYb8TDmBP4Ov7OibyjMzM1mCXvnARPZffXwaDTgfmXtUgzMKiGBb4pDXhWHuaAAzEQqsNuuphTpYymxUBKJZSkNvALdZg8ev/s320/Ukraine_13+%252896%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kyev, 2013</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><i>if i could bottle it up </i></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
found a video tonight from 2012 of driving through Kyev in the middle of the night on a 10 hour trip to camp. lizzy & i were the only Americans at the time...background of mingled Russian & Ukrainian, the city lights blurring past, stupid american pop songs on the radio ("call me maybe"--we looked at each other & died laughing at what they would say if they understood it). lily & lizzy were talking about some deep philosophy: how people's souls have depths-- some are lakes, others oceans; i zoned away to absorb the moment. i have so many precious moments stored up in my heart. swimming in the river with abi & lily in the early morning, lizzy & lily & i singing on the dock by the old house, kolya & his guitar on a blanket with julia under the stars on the soccer field, watching the faces of children explode as they're praised. i wish i could share those moments with others. share the polaroids and videos stored in my mind, so they could understand. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>if i could bottle it up, </i></div>
<i></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><i>i'd have a stash in the truck, splash in my cup</i></i></div>
<i>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>it'd never get old</i></div>
</i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Honestly, i need Ukraine. i need orphan camp, family dinners, the selfless HFO team. i need to be pushed out of my comfort zone to do dance parties & sing on a stage & share a little of the darkest, ugliest parts of my story so others know they're not the only ones with shadows living in their scars. "i go to Ukraine to give back some of what I've been given" is what i used to say. & i meant it. But then my bucket was depleted and never seemed to fill again; i found you can be filled as you empty. </div>
<br />
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>one little sip, just a taste on my lip</i></div>
<i></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><i>i'd be taken a trip wherever i go </i></i></div>
<i>
</i><br />
i wish i could explain that Ukraine keeps my spiritual heart beating, keeps the gospel real & gives me enough oxygen to survive another year. it's the only thing that squeezes my heart fully enough for real circulation. i come alive, i awake, i am, i experience. fully perfused and oxygenated. bright, rich crimson blood of community & grace & Christ flows throughout all of me. the dead extremities wake up, tingling back to life. sure, my scars are still there. i have dark nights, bad days. i wonder what the hell i'm doing and see my insecurities in bright crayon everywhere. i fight the things i know i should do. _but_. i become so much closer to who God made me to be. i laugh. i have more freedom. i wrestle again, i'm authentic. <br />
<br />
the thing which makes my heart ache so intensely is also the thing keeping me alive.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
(<i>bottle it up by sam hunt</i>)</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-52731651195113835352016-01-29T23:44:00.002-05:002017-06-28T22:33:24.435-04:00when recovery isn't what you thought it was<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"...they were all very well meaning, but [...] they'd say was 'whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.' the problem with that was [...] I felt like I was actually broken. That things could happen in your life that would just break a man, that not only you wouldn't be stronger--but that you would never again have what you had before. And I felt that things had slipped in such a way that I would never be able to recover."</blockquote>
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<br />
<br />
i was moved to the point of aching throat from tears unshed by this story. i found it after listening to the Ted talk "A Story of Knots & Surgeons" which was moving; but this version of the story was far more powerful. because it was relatable. It enabled me to identify my own pain, to remember that ( i am not alone ) & ( you are far from the only one walking through this ) are not empty words i tell myself. they're real. oh & btw, i too want to punch people in the face when they say "everything happens for a reason"--even though it's usually directed at my patients, not me.<br />
<br />
i know this desperation. hitting the end of being made stronger -yet- still feeling broken. you just want a conversation with the universe: seriously life? i can't break down anymore. i can't even begin to get up again so enough with the curveballs, the endurance training, the building me stronger shit. because i can't duck anymore, i can't see from the black eyes and i'm now on life support so clearly this isn't working out. there is something about change forced upon you. it's one thing to realize you're not who you used to be because of decisions you've made or a natural progression of circumstances. life changes all of us; i realize that. it's an entirely different thing to realize you aren't who you used to be because of other's choices. trauma creates a black hole within you, it rips pieces away from you with stunning violence. there's no gradual progression.<br />
<br />
i too have hit this pivotal point of recognizing there is no returning. i've been trying to heal & move beyond & get over the abuse in my past because i wanted to go back. i wanted to be the person i was before i realized i had ptsd. the girl who had her own version of things, who painted with bright sunshine all over the dark, ugly sections of history. i view her as the best version of me--the one who my childhood self would be proud of vs this one that she would be horrified to see. but that isn't how healing works. the goal i've been striving for is an impossible one. not impossible as in challenging--impossible as in completely denies every natural law, impossible as in outside the realm of even theoretical physics.<br />
there is no going back.<br />
there is no going back. i don't get to relive my childhood the way i pretended it was. i don't get to view my father through the false lens i created to survive and not hate him, i don't get to forget and erase the once-hidden memories that now flasback on me all the time. i don't get to see my distrust of order as a thirst for adventure anymore; now i know it's a by-product of a child who never really knew what it was to feel safe. i don't get the first 20 years of my life redirected, i have to make do with what i have. come to terms with the gut-wrenching reality that my dad created this chaotic pain in my heart and mind. that it's not my fault; i couldn't have changed it. it's all on him.<br />
<br />
so for me, i'm not so excited about being a new person. getting to the new part means sitting in the ugliness of the old. it means not walking in denial, but facing it. not rushing. giving time & space & voice to the emotions i still shutter so fast and still try to reason out logically so i don't have to feel them. there is nothing harder than looking at ugliness done to you by people who were supposed to keep you safe. i've walked through losses of every kind, chronic pain, disappointment, break-ups. nothing is harder than this--admitting it was intentional in part. admitting there were choices he could have made differently. admitting there is a place blame should lay and it's not mine.<br />
<br />
i can see that i've healed some, there's progress. but being made new vs going back forces me to see just how much of myself is still shattered. so many tiny fragments, so much broken glass. i don't think it's realistic to believe any longer that they can all be put back together. i think moving forward means i have to re-frame wholeness.<br />
<br />
wholeness that doesn't mean completed by all the things i lost, all the parts of myself that were ripped out me? that is something i don't quite have a frame of reference for.<br />
but maybe i'll get there.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-55518279711293755192016-01-04T23:58:00.001-05:002017-06-28T22:31:16.468-04:00not the first<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
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"<i>Come in and trade your tears</i></div>
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<i>All worry and ease your fears</i></div>
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<i>Your burden is not unknown</i></div>
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<i>Don't run friend you're not alone</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><i>For all confined come be set free</i></span></div>
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<i>For all the blind that long to see</i></div>
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<i>Come and receive the perfect relief </i></div>
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<i>Come and believe He bore your grief</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><i>Rise up as the war has ceased</i></span></div>
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<i>No bondage you have been released</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><i>Come all you weak and contrite</i></span></div>
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<i>He'll strengthen and clothe you in white"</i></div>
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<i>Relief--Wolves at the Gate</i></div>
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[ I am not the first ] whispered it's way into my mind along with the pressure to let go, to rest.</div>
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I'm not the first to be here, in this seemingly never ending winter-desert.<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">I was crushed under the weight of all the people i have lost. as if memory were a blanket made of steel wool suffocating my heart. it's been a long time since I've felt so desperate for my grandmothers' prayers & laughter. my grandfather's steady safety, great-grandma's delighted treasuring, Aunt Phyllis' remembering, Uncle John whose far too young death still surprises my memory. Grammie, who shaped me more than I knew. the little brother we never held. my mom's best friend, the only one who knew her heart as a sister in arms. the list is too long. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">my old companions the stars hung in the sky like traitors, trading their usual comfort for mockery. they appeared to represent all my goodbyes: small farewells flung from this rock of Earth into the universe across a distance farther than that between the known galaxies. even though it's not forever, if the promise of eternal life I'm staking my existence on is true; right now it's too long away. too much, too far, too long. </span></div>
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but I cling to this whisper--stories & songs & poems & art serve to remind me this ache is as familiar to the humans as our need for oxygen. I'm not the only one who has looked into the night sky and longed to fly away. or wished my lost ones were as close as a visible star. not the only one who has felt others' pain and carried it. not the first girl to think she can't go on. to wonder just how long she can hang on this edge of breaking. </div>
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and we still keep on. we keep on living & fighting for truths & breathing & working for a future. we strive towards the light. some of us protect the tiniest coal of hope still glowing within. others use their own flaming abundance to ignite the cold hearts around them. always, always we strive towards the light. towards Hope, the Light above us with waves running farther, faster than any of our darkness. towards the smallest reflection within us, the sparks we see in each other's eyes that remind us there is Light above the clouds & beyond the galaxies. a flame that never dies. one that cuts deeper than pain, strong & pure & bright until even the deepest rending the human heart can endure is repaired. </div>
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[ i don't know how to rest. i don't know how to let go, because when i consider relaxing my grip, i crack like this. pain seeps out messy & ugly. so shattering that i lock it away. i'm scared i'll fall into pieces so minuscule i never find them all. help me rest. help me be ok with collapse. promise you'll give me new pieces & make new seams; so i am not all left to jagged edges and missing slivers. ] </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-2974108915818828202015-07-29T16:28:00.001-04:002015-07-29T16:28:57.817-04:00h o p e<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DJ5jptE_aME/Vbk3iI315gI/AAAAAAAAC4A/aRkY1kV9A2o/s640/blogger-image-1916047245.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DJ5jptE_aME/Vbk3iI315gI/AAAAAAAAC4A/aRkY1kV9A2o/s640/blogger-image-1916047245.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><br></div>struggling with a heavy heart today, knowing that the battle is usually won with song but unable to get there. <div><br></div><div>unable = pretty much sums me up today, actually. </div><div><br></div><div>opening my bible with little faith, because usually I need to worship myself out of my funks before I read. but desperate I open my heart and whisper "oh God where is your hope in this book?"</div><div><br></div><div>this never happens, so I'm not offering this as a healthy method of studying the word... but I flip through and haphazardly stop at Zechariah 10, bc "restoration" caught my eye. </div><div><br></div><div>what. I've read this book cover to cover many times, and it's new. I can't remember the last time the Word felt fresh or new to me. here, amidst chapters of bizarre visions & judgment & wrath on Isreal's enemies; is a psalm of restoration. </div><div><br></div><div><div>“My anger is hot against the shepherds,</div><div>and I will punish the leaders;</div><div>for the Lord of hosts cares for his flock, the house of Judah,</div><div>and will make them like his majestic steed in battle. </div><div>From him shall come the cornerstone,</div><div>from him the tent peg,</div><div>from him the battle bow,</div><div>from him every ruler—all of them together. </div><div>They shall be like mighty men in battle,</div><div>trampling the foe in the mud of the streets;</div><div>they shall fight because the Lord is with them,</div><div>and they shall put to shame the riders on horses. </div><div><br></div><div>“I will strengthen the house of Judah,</div><div>and I will save the house of Joseph.</div><div>I will bring them back because I have compassion on them,</div><div>and they shall be as though I had not rejected them,</div><div>for I am the Lord their God and I will answer them. </div><div>Then Ephraim shall become like a mighty warrior,</div><div>and their hearts shall be glad as with wine.</div><div>Their children shall see it and be glad;</div><div>their hearts shall rejoice in the Lord. </div><div><br></div><div>“I will whistle for them and gather them in,</div><div>for I have redeemed them,</div><div>and they shall be as many as they were before. </div><div>Though I scattered them among the nations,</div><div>yet in far countries they shall remember me,</div><div>and with their children they shall live and return. ...</div><div>I<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"> will make them strong in the Lord,</span></div></div><div><div>and they shall walk in his name,”</div><div>declares the Lord."</div></div><div><br></div><div>my desperate cries are rarely answered so clearly, but thank You for this. thank You Lord for knowing I am at the end of myself, for being gracious, for provin Yourself kind & gentle with the broken.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-50601555104965920182015-06-11T23:06:00.000-04:002017-06-28T22:33:24.429-04:00why i hate mirrors<div style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
<i>I wrote this shortly after my 27 birthday; and while I'm in a different place I wanted to post it here so I don't lose it. </i></div>
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I'm sitting here reading a memoir from a Jewish boy who escaped the Soviet Union with his family in the late 1980s. I thought it would expand my mind, & my heart; put myself in another's very different shoes for a while. Maybe gain a little more insight into the history of the Ukraine I know & love so fiercely. </div>
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I didn't think I could possibly relate.</div>
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I didn't expect to find myself reflected.</div>
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I didn't foresee having to </div>
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move the book so the pages don't wrinkle--not from tears of empathy for his pain, but of familiarity. </div>
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I didn't expect to hear I wasn't alone from such a vastly different experience. </div>
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as he explains his self-loathing, his need to run from who he is. the journey of realizing the communist hatred for his ethnicity has become his own. as he talks about trying to run from himself, not grasping safety. wanting nothing more than to stop being a "zhud"--but he can't because he sees it every time he looks in the mirror. I can't imagine what that would be like, to hate myself for my olive skin & brown eyes. at least that's what my rational brain expects me think. but instead I'm crying, heart cracked open by the ache of hating mirrors myself. the girl who fought so hard to rise above & choose to be happy & goofy & resilient doesn't look back at me anymore. the messages of my worthlessness & ugliness & fragility from my abuser--words I fought so hard against in my mind--have become so much a part of me I can't see my reflection without wondering if it's true.</div>
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just like he can't help but believe he is worthless because of his birthright. </div>
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i can't help but believe i am worthless because i am a woman. because i wasn't "enough". because i was treated as if i didn't matter, as if i was a burden.</div>
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so instead of expanding outward, I'm expanding inward. yes, I too have a hard time with mirrors. I too want to run from my story & the ugly parts I can't change. I too have taken on the messages of my abuser, until I cannot see myself apart from them.</div>
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I too hate compliments, because I cannot see myself as worthy. they call into question the integrity of the one giving it. how can I trust your judgment now? Why would you say that--are they lying to me intentionally? are they blinded bc they love me? are they fools? </div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I too have been shaped & molded by the people whose actions told me I wasn't worth fighting for, told me I deserved abuse, told me my heart & my safety didn't matter. told me God wasn't concerned with my protection, only my response to "trial". it took me a long time to realize the nagging voice inside that wanted to scream against their words was truth.</span></div>
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Lev Golinkin, thank you. thank you for sharing your story with all its ugly jagged edges. thank you for not masking the raw pain, for taking us through the struggle. for showing us you have overcome. showing you have become one who is able to look his past square in the face, fight its lies and move into somebody who claims their rightful heritage. it gives me hope that I may do the same. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-72650927057311317112015-02-24T02:26:00.000-05:002017-06-26T21:45:45.032-04:00{ because my hands are tired }<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/76786498" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe> <br />
<a href="https://vimeo.com/76786498">The Lone Bellow - "Watch Over Us" Unplugged</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/michaelleiato">Michael Leiato</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
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^^this band for me embodies things that i doubt they have any idea of: that beauty can be born from struggle. the truth that hard fighting doesn't leave a pretty face behind it, that some sorrows scar & forever alter our hearts. something powerful happens when they sing. it's as if the songs are crafted no longer with words & notes but instead with honesty, blood, sweat, pain. a weakness refusing to shatter; hope refusing to surrender. it bleeds into the music and creates a great exchange: what overflows onto the listeners is a beautiful courage, a fierce grace, a real and messy hope. it breathes the gospel without one bible verse ever being stated. maybe it's just what deep souls sound like when they allow themselves to spill over with the rawness of everything they have. maybe it's so rare because few people engage their sufferings and let it deepen them. or maybe so many of us have never felt the safety of kindred souls, and we have forgotten how to bare our own.<br />
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maybe i just think these things because the first time i heard of them was on a night i almost stayed home. a hurt had been silently building for almost my whole life, and had finally reached overflow levels. it was seeping through my heart, out my skin. i was afraid my friends would see it in my eyes. ask questions i couldn't answer. i didn't know them myself yet, back then. but i went. this passionate little band from brooklyn played songs from their Ep, & i had tears for the first time in ages. i felt a spark. the first time i had felt anything but hollow ache in many months. here's where this is going to drift into personal rant...<br />
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3 years later. here i am again, walking through all the pain that i boxed up last time. because 22 years of abuse and manipulation and threat of violence was just too much to unpack alone. it still feels like too much. i know the words to answer my friend's questions now, if they look close enough to ask them. but it's still hard to verbalize. even with a counselor who gets not only the power of Jesus, but also the way He created human hearts and minds. i still want to box it up. i can't bear to look at my fragility. i fear the crushing weight hidden under layers of a childhood-teenagehood rewritten with gentler words; carefully highlighted light and erased darkness. my pencil was a better silencer than any duct tape. i'm scared to see just how much of myself was lost. it is easier to live within my familiar ghost of a girl. i want to run back to my safe denial. my lies that none of it matters, that i wasn't affected, that it's not a big deal. those which made this bearable, that kept me sane, that kept the families around us comfortable, that maintained the status quo. sometimes i want to collapse under the darkness. at moments it presses in so fiercely i don't know how my lungs have room to expand. it doesn't seep through as much though, anymore. not hard to live an externally happy & normal life. mostly. but there are days when i don't know how i am breathing & smiling & going to the grocery store & working with classmates. i guess i should be amazed at my normalcy of function when this same pain had me crippled by panic attacks (and thinking i was crazy) 3 years ago. but honestly? i'm not very grateful for God's sustaining grace. the sustaining part, i mean. i'm by no means suicidal. i don't want to die, just... stop. & rest. & heal up slowly and all at once. so this dragging on & little steps has a foreseeable end. sometimes i resent this body & mind that keep going, going, going. long after my heart has caved in. i want to hide from the harsh realities. to pretend the brokenness of my family is a more normal dysfunction. a kind with no shame. i want to numb my pain with Netflix & Pinterest. Drowning it out in the noise of an increasingly cynical & apathetic & shallow world. in our inspirational quotes, positive thinking, happy veneer that has no weight in the face of the excruciating losses mortal humans face.<br />
but i can't. not anymore, because <a href="http://tealsharpie.blogspot.com/2014/10/free-writing.html" target="_blank">when the truth has been seen it can't be forgotten</a>. it's my story. it's not what i wanted. not what i would write. but i only have two options: claim it and see where the pages turn; or deny it and always be re-writing a fiction. it belongs to me as intensely as my DNA. i no longer have the option of pretending *and* keeping any truth in my soul. i would have to trade authenticity for comfort. it is tempting. i'm ashamed to admit how often...<br />
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here's where the lone bellow comes in: i want to be like them. a soul that sparks hope into the broken when they bump into me. a person honest & vulnerable & real so the bruised soul recognizes itself in another. a visible proof that triumph does exist in the long defeat. i want a life that proclaims "i have seen darkest nights, i have bruises from the floor on my face; but i'm still here--not just surviving--thriving. enjoying places the light seeps in. there's still beauty worth surviving for!" (it's not like i have some weird obsession with the band themselves, i'm not looking at them as saviors or gods & goddesses on a pedestal--it's the music) their music is a focus amidst all my confusion. a constant reminder of who i wanted to be long before i ever heard them. a whisper telling me there might be restoration to my story yet. it might not always be one of shame. i might not always carry guilt for things done to me, as if i deserved abuse for just being alive. a thought that maybe one day all this ugly might be made lovely. all these jagged edges i can't bear to look at might be patched and almost-whole.<br />
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<b>that's </b>why i have to face my pain. i have to battle it, i have to engage it. because if i don't, i give up any chance of redemption. any chance to have a powerful story. i won't grow deeper. i won't have a fire from demons battled to keep me warm in colder places. i won't be able to look the hurting in the eye and say: "i have no idea why such hells are allowed on this earth, but i know there's a heaven Kingdom coming." i want to not only see the Light; i want to share it. i want to make beauty out of the hard spaces. mostly, i want to face it all now so it no longer dominates my narrative. i want to become brave, unashamed, free to be honest. a woman who brings grace to wounds and creates light from dark shadows.<br />
<br />
but right now,<br />
i just want to rest.<br />
<i>my hands are tired, my strength is gone...</i><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16627198.post-49296296533164920222015-02-15T15:51:00.000-05:002016-05-26T01:04:01.815-04:00things I've always known but rarely allow myself to dwell on what I really want is just to sail around the world & live at sea. to be a drifter, to have stories, to be free & strange & content. I want to delve a little deeper into the cultures of the world with each stop. I want to become familiar with/able to converse in many languages. not from textbooks, from necessity. from meeting like-hearted people, from learning to read the soul reflected in their eyes and thus connect meanings to language. I want to know my capabilities thoroughly--when to jerry-rig, when to let a pro fix it. I long for weeks on end alone with myself and God. until my desperation is so fierce I finally let go of all my pride & fragility & fears. to regain the ease of speaking with Him, to feel again that His love & approval--securely mine already--are the rock of my joy. I want to be sure of myself again, & the sea always gives me that. I want to be a student of nature, reading the sky & sea as if my life depended on it. keeping me centered. to build friendships without Facebook. show my gratitude with letters & foreign presents. to crave human interaction after weeks at sea--instead of the constant craving for peace & solitude that lies just beneath my fraying smile. i want to lose my dependence and false "need" of materialism. to learn true simplicity--not the kind I strive for now by avoiding target & Pinterest & the first privileged world that constantly screams at me to buy! want! have! more is better!<br />
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but sailing takes money to learn if you have no boat and no sailor friends. some things need to be born into, born for; our society tells us to go for what we want with no understanding that sometimes, it's not best for you.<br />
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so I'll work towards a job I love, but that lives behind four stout walls. I will help people & challenge my heart-mind-and-body; and I will be content.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0