the sea anemone in me

2012-02-14T15:34:00.000-08:00

I'm letting my secrets out and it's working.

I'm not wearing any-colored glasses anymore and that's working too.

I'm taking down the walls you built around me, brick by brick.

I'm understanding things I always knew but never understood.

I'm almost ready to love 100%.

2012-01-29T14:46:00.001-08:00

Did you know I saved this for last because it's the part that scares me the most.

What if I am mediocre at best? When all is said and done and the excuses are all gone if I still can't put two and two together the right way?

2012-01-24T10:03:00.000-08:00

I went wrong assuming this would be life rebuilt, a slightly altered mirror image of what it already was.

Clearing out the unnecessary leftovers and making it brand new again.

2012-01-06T07:43:00.000-08:00

This is a dedication. A recognition, a plea, a melancholic love letter, this is all the things I can't seem to say. It's cryptic and coded and in my secret language that none seem to understand.

I'm sorry. For so many things. That things have come to be as I've let them. I don't know much about destiny, or fate, but I do know that making no choice, or taking no action is a choice and an action. It surrounds the causes and effects with negative space, a haze, and perhaps good things will naturally sprout, but that's not so common. But know that I hold myself accountable, in the quiet hours when all is still and suspended in dreams, I lay and wonder at every turning point when it was still not too late or too far gone or too anything. It's possible of course that it really was over before it began, and I have tried to cast off the residues that seem to sully my every new start, but I know not how to shed them. They are tethered to me as anchors, that perhaps once saved my life and held me to the ground when my thoughts soared too close to the sun. Now even with a running start and you pushing me as you do, my little baby bird wings flap until numb and when I come to I find myself still grounded.

Thank you. For so many things. I am probably terrible at showing appreciation. I'm too awkward to say heart whelming thank you's or make poetic declarations, no matter the depths of my gratitude and admiration. And it is deep. My debt to you is growing with every second and we both know I can never repay it.

2012-01-04T20:25:00.000-08:00

It's been hard lately to love. Maybe it was me all along. My heart is swollen, always racing, pumping too much too hard.

2011-12-30T17:29:00.000-08:00

I really miss letting my little self out and playing with her.

The closer these things come to becoming a something the scarier it gets. Tons of what ifs and lots of buts, but mostly the dread of settling in, that period of disarray before everything finds its place, becomes comfortable. And I don't mean materially, arranging and rearranging and organizing and setting up is my absolute favorite part. It's more about the minds of the inhabitants, it's more about finding the light switches in the dark and no hesitation in your steps to the bathroom in the late, still hours of sleep times. It's about the subtle, subconscious sighs that don't even register with us anymore when we enter the door, hang our coats, slip our shoes off and drop our days. I don't want it to be a new habitat for our habits, a continuation of what is, what we are; I want it to be a vessel. Each day ushering in chance after chance for a new evolution.

What if she and I are strangers after so long apart. What if our time is forced, full of awkward silences, nostalgic glances. What if it's never an anything ever again.

2011-12-24T20:43:00.001-08:00

Merry. Happy.

2011-12-02T20:54:00.000-08:00

All I really hope for anymore is reincarnation. If I could have my way, I'd come back as something small, not in size but in consequence; a blade of grass, monopoly money, anything that can't betray itself. A chance to exist correctly.

Looking back to one year ago, how much smaller my kids were, how different I felt, what my days and nights consisted of. Most of the time I can't breath anymore, if I start to cry it's nearly impossible to stop. Struggle to struggle less, squirming at the thought of starting another year in this way, I want to be able to file the hardships away, so looking back I can say 2011 was a bad year and leave it all there. I still don't feel like I'm moving in any direction, time always goes faster after my birthday and before I even realize it's almost Christmas. I started a completely new sketchbook/journal today. It felt good to have sticky fingers and touch pen to paper again, it's been so long.

If I'm really honest with myself, I'd do everything differently from age 6 1/2 on. I remember the exact moment I walked in to my new room on Meyer Lane and how I felt and what I thought, all the possibilities surging through me, even so young I was always bursting out of myself.

Everything since that moment has been a disappointment. At least I'm done blaming other people.

2011-11-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

I acknowledge my smallness, my inabilities, all the things I'm lacking, perhaps too much, to a fault. We are all just small obscure puzzle pieces waiting to be placed, to fill in a gap meant solely for us, to fill a space so perfectly and come to rest there as a part of something bigger and more beautiful; a full picture.

When things are as they are and we're constantly cleaning up the messes of others does there come a point in love when we stop keeping score? When everything blends and runs deeply intertwined, when we would no longer even consider sharing because we'd never known our lonesome selves, our singular selves. Do we ever reach a point of blindness by true love, where there are no more tallies and we can't call anymore to mind the fights of the past? Is it necessarily bad for us if we do?

2011-10-19T20:54:00.000-07:00

I can't stop wondering. I wonder at how many people are curled up at this very moment with their feet touching the one they truly love. Or how many are sleeping back to back in anger, or how many have settled; how many are like me, preparing to sleep alone. I wonder if I'm the only one who reaches out in those brief moments throughout sleep when we wake just slightly, checking to see that they are still not alone, or perhaps forgetting they were. I wonder at how many humans have true regrets, real major life changing regrets that could've changed the course of their universe. Or do we really just trudge along like toy trains, stuck on our tracks with every path predetermined. Perhaps varying a bit east or west as we grow and trick ourselves into thinking we've decided the course of things, but all the courses are set.

I wonder at how things are viewed differently to all, if even colors and sounds are unique to each eye or ear. And I wonder if it's DNA that establishes the weak and the strong, the learned from the ignorant. If each has their own capacity to love and to suffer and if we are pushed and pulled to meet it of our own doing, or that predisposal is foreseen by the universe and it has a road lain for each and every one. And if we can pass with our eyes and hearts closed and still get by or if it will find its way around our stubbornness to open us up and force us to our limits.

If we are truly tired will it pity us and let us come to rest?

2011-09-17T22:22:00.000-07:00

So many people, places, things I feel anchored to pushing and pulling and weighing each for its own benefit, the fulfillment of its own agenda. Things I've wanted to keep have been torn from me and everything I'd kill to shed remains bound. Sometimes it seems a reasonable task to keep on, mostly I find myself lacking; repeating every sentiment positive or negative, living in shifts like the ocean's tides. Maybe we all operate this way, but it seems others get further along on their paths and I somehow remain, sore and bruised and growing a quiet rage, harboring a gentle hatred that I've not learned to use for anyone's advantage. It remains pure and private as a memento of everything that's broken and all the negative spaces waiting to be filled.

2011-09-09T12:49:00.001-07:00

I need the ocean, she fills the holes in me. She clears out the cobwebs, she pushes and pulls and my blood responds and reacts and everything in me tingles and sways. She enters each of my senses and establishes a common rhythm all throughout, brings me back together when I've drifted and come apart. She's refreshing and light but I come away full and calm. I need the ocean.

2011-09-06T06:04:00.001-07:00

What things are within my reach to change or alter? Learn to focus my energies on that. So much of me is spent despairing and reaching for things I know I can't grasp, all of that me can surely be put to better use. I'm maybe not ready to reach for the sun, but I think I can at least take my eyes off the dirt.

2011-09-04T18:25:00.000-07:00

Slow and steady. Stop trying to race, sit back, breathe. There are lessons hidden all throughout, at every phase. The transitions always tear me up, as I find myself adapting to one trick you begin something new. It gets impossible to tell which way is up, which direction will carry me home.

Make lists, document, make improvements: there's always room in here. Open myself at least to myself and be honest and don't stop moving, even if it's terrible.

simplicity

2011-08-27T05:01:00.000-07:00

I'm glad to be where I am today, as hard as it's been picking up the pieces and moving forward at less than a snail's pace, I'm not stuck where I've been. Even with everything the way it is, even with the impending gray clouds of a storm always looming near by, I feel lighter, especially today. I can realize and admit mistakes, I'm not embarrassed to say what I shouldn't have done. It's an adult maneuver, to say I'm sorry for my part and to hope you will finally realize yours and that we can both continue on to something glorious, something real, something worth anything to get to and to keep. I will always wish that for you, I can't stop wanting everything for everyone, deserved or earned or gifted or stolen, I can't distinguish. I have a little girl heart, its desires remain through every trial, no matter the whats or the whos: a place to be, to feel in every bone that I belong where I am; my own tiny niche to hide and stretch in like a shady retreat in a desert. To be a part of a well oiled machine of a family, strong, in sync with itself, all its parts working together for the advancement of the whole, supporting and carrying and pushing and pulling, whatever it takes without end until the thing is done, until it's run the course. Accomplishing the sum of all the individual desires, learning and growing and shrinking and doing all the things we people must do, but never alone in suffering or joy.

2011-08-24T13:25:00.000-07:00

It's so hard to see anything other than the whole, my focus is frozen on the big picture, every small thing seems insignificant. Through everything I try and every choice made on every new day almost nothing comes to an end. I see my desires realized in my dreams, I wake in the same cell, bound and exhausted from struggling to fly in my sleep. I cry out and what returns is naught save my own echoing despair, distant and somehow foreign to myself. As if I'd grown apart from me, like the limbs of a budding tree forking and choosing two separate paths, fighting to be free of themselves, gaining nothing, getting nowhere.

Why can't I shake this?

2011-08-19T21:05:00.000-07:00

I hope it's clear, my days of being swayed have expired. The girl I was, her bad parts are realized and dissected and cast off night after night, I could never forget. Her good parts seem hazy and dreamlike, part of some distant fairy tale I'm trying to actualize. Her reality has been cold and hard and the damage done has been unceasing, full of wounds she thought might never heal. She's heard tales of distant wars and the will to fight on, to defeat death or die trying. She wants to live, I'm only now re-learning how to let her.

2011-08-17T18:41:00.000-07:00

Living like a wilted brown leaf, detached, unsure and alone, riding the wind in an endless series of wasted motions. No clear courses or paths, no destinations, no control. If leafs could feel would they feel that void: what was missing, what they'd lost? Would they be accepting, would they view the bigger picture? Could they grasp the endless cycles of life and death, up and down, this way and that? Or would it all end in questions, why? what now? Would they realize their value? That their purpose extended beyond living and being lush and glowing green; to dying and decomposing to aide in the life of something bigger than they?

And how can it be that contemplating lends to tears and not understanding?

do or die

2011-08-06T13:01:00.001-07:00

With each new day more of myself gets displaced. We race against opposing forces to put the pieces back in some sensible order but it's tiresome work. Laboring in a haze, down curiously winding roads leading to dead ends, full of locked doors. But it's time, I'm almost ready. It has to be full force, arms raised, guns blazing.

2011-07-31T15:11:00.000-07:00

I want an endless number of days like today. The perfect heat and cool water close by just in case. No sounds to speak of but the birds and the buzzing things and giggles from somewhere in the green grass.

My heart still races but I no longer seek only the wild adventures of youth and irresponsibility. I can say my best days are spent doing nothing much, normal simple things, pulling weeds, walking in no hurry, sitting still.

I want quiet, calm; a lifetime of the good kinds of slow.

2011-07-15T18:46:00.000-07:00

P.S. It's been one year since I started this little blog, looking and thinking back on one years time and how many things can change and how quickly the time can pass.

Perseverance

2011-07-15T18:07:00.000-07:00

Eyes wide open, heart on the floor, tripping over myself and choking on my own breath. A few rays of your sunshine, a few moments worth of your touch is all it takes to erase everything for a time. Warmth and reminders and giggles and calm and you have me believing, I can do this and I will. I can make a life out of these broken pieces. I will grow like weeds through the cracks in the concrete and I'll spread and eventually overtake everything else and the hard, rough surfaces will slowly disappear until the lush green freshness of a new life is all that remains.

It takes work, more than I could have ever imagined possible for one person, just to stay alive. Harder work than I thought I would ever see, being as spoiled as I've been. How naive to think I could deserve the happy ending, the fairytale life I pictured, without the turmoil or the villains or the moments of triumph.

2011-07-05T17:24:00.000-07:00

So much to get through, so far to dig before I reach the surface. I may get a glimpse of the sun on occasion but the walls of my tunnel are fickle and insecure and crumble for fun if I get too sure of anything. My only hope is that you keep calling to me from above, something in the softness of your voice eggs me on, when I hear it I find a way to keep my muscles moving no matter how tired I grow and how loudly they rebel.

2011-07-01T11:40:00.000-07:00

Surrounding myself and being surrounded by great love stories, observing every move so closely. The way a man jumps to answer the phone when it's his love's voice waiting on the line. And maybe she's in a far away place and there's a void now, a hole, where she was all this time and a few minutes here or there make up the delicate threads still binding and weaving their everythings together until their eyes can meet again.

There's something so full of pull in the eyes of lovers, my heart races even to see it between others; my mind can replay and replay your eyes seeing mine and my body melts on impact, all the more convenient for you to drink me up to the last drop and it's just so easy.

the greatest love song ever written

2011-06-30T08:26:00.000-07:00

Twenty miles left to the show
Hello my old country hello
Stars are just beginning to appear
And I have never in my life before been here

And it's my heart, not me, who cannot drive
In which conclusion you arrive
Watching me sit here bolt upright and cry
For no good reason at the Eastern sky

And the tilt of this strange nation
And the will to remain for the duration
Waving the flag, feeling it drag

Like a bump on a bump on a log, baby
Like I'm in a fist fight with a fog, baby
Step-ball-change and a pirouette
And .. and I regret, I regret

How I said to you, honey, just open your heart
When I've got trouble even opening a honey jar
And that right there is where we are

And I been 'fessing double fast
Addressing questions nobody asks
I'll get this joy off of my chest at last
And I will love you 'til the noise has long since passed

And I did not mean to shout, just drive
Just get us out, dead or alive
A road too long to mention, Lord It's something to see..
Laid down by the good intentions paving company

All the way to the thing we've been playing at, darlin'
I can see that you're wearing your staying hat, darlin'
For the time being all is well
Won't you love me a spell?

This is blindness beyond all conceiving
Well, behind us the road is leaving, and leaving
And falling back
Like a rope gone slack

And I saw straight away that the lay was steep
But I fell for you, honey, as easy as falling asleep
And that right there is the course I keep...

And no amount of talking
Is going to soften the fall
But, like after the rain, step out
Of the overhang, that's all

It had a nice a ring to it
When the old opry house rang
so, with a solemn auld lan syne, sealed, delivered,
I sang.

And there is hesitation
And it always remains
Concerning you, me,
And the rest of the gang

And in our quiet hour
I feel I see everything

And am in love with the hook
Upon which everyone hangs

And I know you meant to show the extent
To which you gave a goddang
You ranged real hot and real cold,
But I'm sold.
I am home on the range

And I do hate to fold
Right here at the top of my game
When I've been trying with my whole heart and soul
To stay right here in the right lane

But it can make you feel over and old
Lord, you know it's a shame
When I only want for you to pull over
and hold me, 'Til I can't remember my own name.

2011-06-28T06:17:00.000-07:00

I want to read your diary, I want to see you through the window when you're alone. I want to hear you describe times and places and events and people, and most importantly me. I want to see you let your guard down and I want to let mine down to match; I want a mutual vulnerability we're both aware of, a locked-eyes agreement, a silent promise of delicacy and care.

2011-06-24T04:45:00.000-07:00

Suddenly, shockingly, you've all been reduced to pinpricks, every new attack on every new day. Nothing more than the thorns on a beautiful bush of a life. You may scratch my surface, I may forget for a time, but I extract you with ease and head on, leaving behind me a trail; your attempts at destruction, a warning and a reminder not to turn back. It's not that I'm tougher, or my exterior is hardened or I'm stronger or more resilient; I can't be sure exactly if it's any consequence of mine, or just time, or a realization (a re-realization?) of how little it really matters, how little damage could really be done.

In some ways though you're like a guardian angel, you tug at my golden leash if I should falter and if I never leave your sight I am not afraid.

War

2011-06-20T06:31:00.000-07:00

It hurts to try and retaliate, if that's even what it is I'd be doing. Does it change what it's called or make it less ugly once we decide it's what has to be done? There's no other way? Even if we and everyone we know can justify it one thousand times over, does that make it any less of what it is?

It hurts to look back and divide the times into befores and afters. Oh, remember this moment, or this day, before things fell apart, before everything was a mess. And maybe it's easier on the heart to try and remember mostly good, to powder things down and dress them up and fit them into boxes with pretty labels, even when they don't belong. Because otherwise doesn't it seem more useless, or worthless, like we fought and suffered and maybe it was really for nothing?

free write? PRACTICE? LET IT OUT?

2011-06-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

"Can you tell if you're alone - do you think you can tell the difference once you're asleep? I mean can you still feel me here by you? Or is it all the same once we start dreaming?"

He turned to face her, still half covered in the darkness of almost sleep and his face was frowning though his eyes were soft. "How should I know?"

She shrugged, almost undetected, but he heard her sigh, her worry sigh.

"I know the falling asleep part doesn't work so well if you're gone, and I know the waking up part is a big let down if the bed's empty and cool."

She seemed satisfied enough and slipped her hand into his, fingers tucked into their own tiny beds, coming to rest easily and soon he felt the subtle twitches of sleep taking her from him to dreams.

2011-06-10T04:55:00.000-07:00

Too needy, too reliant.

I'm not even the same person anymore I once was, not in a good matured-grown way,
in a forgotten way. In a tragic way.

Once part of an island sinks below the water it usually stays put, it's not definite, it's not lost forever, but visiting is a task, a day-trip, that's just the kind of time I don't have.

Everyplace I go I sprout new anchors, every inch of me is sprouting, one for each and every place and person and ache and wish and desire. Slowing me, slower, slower, slower.

Aside from time, it's such risky business, all these anchors would surly be more at home in the depths and dig themselves in, do their jobs, do just what they are meant to. Do just what's expected of them, fulfillment, achievement.

I'm still waiting to feel like the person everyone keeps describing when they tell me about myself.

2011-05-25T04:43:00.000-07:00

Life is always moving on, moving away from me, clocks are ticking, the days and months of this year are steadily over and done before I even realize the date. I get so down on myself sometimes, disappointed at where I'm not, all the places and things I've wanted and haven't actualized; possible and impossible, regrets are mostly all the same. All the words and images inside me, colors, shapes, they're trapped, wasted, forgotten before they've ever lived. It's getting a little better though, I'm a little further along from where I've been standing. Sometimes this quick sand seems like an optical illusion and I chastise myself for not forcing my way through and out.

2011-05-17T13:11:00.000-07:00

Every little thing down to the smallest of details is a fight to the death these days.

2011-05-16T06:12:00.000-07:00

There's an itch, a growl slowly creeping overhead today, an old familiar friend I've been missing. My hands tremble at the thought but I'm careful, if I reach too soon I'll lose it. If I scratch too anxiously, I'll damage it. Feed it too much too fast and it'll burst. I try not to swell with a hopeful longing, it's been fleeting and fickle for so long, this time like all the others there's no guarantee. I'm owed nothing.

But I do need this, maybe more than ever.

2011-05-11T16:08:00.000-07:00

No matter where or when or what context, every person and every home; every car with all its people, driving or being driven, old or young. Who takes care of you, or do you take care of yourself?

2011-05-05T08:10:00.000-07:00

There are so many words and I always want to let them out. The tunnels that should connect my head and my heart to my mouth have always gone through my fingertips instead. I don't think that's a new development, I was maybe even born this way. Maybe the condition has been worsened over time, thinking I'd be laughed at or brushed aside but I know how different you are. I see it and feel it and as much as I want it to be true or to just accept that it is true, still my mouth is on lockdown, access denied. Maybe it will get better with time, maybe we can rewire my insides, you and I. Or maybe I'll write you letters, an explanation of my every days and every nights and an outline of my every sighs.

2011-05-02T06:57:00.000-07:00

I'm scared I can't keep going and it's not that you aren't enough, you're too much but I'm too much too.

2011-04-24T12:50:00.000-07:00

How long does it really take for the dust to settle after a world is so shaken to its core?

2011-04-22T08:04:00.000-07:00

No matter how much you fill my pockets and garnish my head with wreaths of flowers and mend the tears and patch the holes and stitch up my wounds, they haven't stopped aching. Sometimes I'm scared they never will and if you grow tired or frustrated, will the new pieces crumble or will I wander in the dark? Might I get so far from safety and find myself at the edge of the world, would I stop then or lay down and die, or perhaps let myself fall off, uncaring, unafraid; untied from everything that should hold me here. I'm afraid to hear I don't know my own strength, or the depth of my bravery, I'm afraid the truth would be I know there is none, or what little there has been is dwindling. Or that maybe I've always been running on fumes and some way I've willed myself on this far but how long could I possibly keep it up? And maybe I've given you an image of myself that's blown up like a fanciful balloon animal and slowly I am losing air and soon enough I will shrivel away to nothing but what's left, all the broken, trampled pieces I've been left with. I wonder in the dark, what would be too much for you to bare and please, let me never get that gone.

2011-04-19T12:27:00.000-07:00

I don't know yet if I'll make it, but you are convincing and all those warm, soft, comfortable things are becoming familiar and I wonder how they were ever not here.

I still don't know about the strength part, the bravery part, those come in waves and it's easy to forget them when they're away.

2011-04-09T11:51:00.000-07:00

I've drawn the map, or found it along the way, or realized what I've always known and what comes next is waiting for me to reach out and take hold of it. I think this could be IT, the very same it I've been wanting after for so long, for what seems like my entire lifetime and in reality is almost half of that. Which seems endless or heavy or like it's been an eternity already but I know life is just starting now and what's done was done for some reason I can't fathom and what can be changed is changing and what remains are battle scars but it no longer hurts so much to run my fingertips over them. Like a seasoned warrior I can wake and paint my face and brave the new days because I think I know you're going to be there when I need to lean and when I need a push or when I need to breathe and it's time to rest. Sleeping has never felt so good and waking up has never been so easy. It's hard not to be scared when things are scary but somehow it's easy to keep trying, that's the bravery I never absorbed from you, yet you give so easily. It shines through every action and every word and even every glance in my direction. It's all new and I find myself eager in ways and still cautious but I haven't reached any plateaus yet and if my eyes sparkle it's because I can't stop my heart or slow it down and a soft warm wanderlust is flowing through its ventricles and coursing through my veins and it has me begging you for more. I can't split the sensical from the nonsensical, this newfound appetite is a ravenous one and I think I'll never be full.

Too much, so nice.

notes to self:

2011-04-05T11:35:00.001-07:00

Remember to breathe, and don't neglect and never forget and take all the necessary steps and go slower and always be slowing down not necessarily the pace but the waves and the sounds and keep your eyes open and push your mind to stay clear and watch your steps and copy it down and sing out for all to hear.

2011-04-01T05:31:00.000-07:00

It's settled. No matter how high the tsunami, all we can do is rise to the occasion.

2011-03-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

This churning won't rest. There are no changing tides, it's always a beautiful full moon. It's so much deeper than surface changes, which wax and wane always, this is something entirely its own, unique in the truest sense. Gears are turning in me that have never worked, or were newly birthed. I'm like a toddler with a new toy, curious and so eager. Gently exploring; fingering every nook, every bend and button, twisting all the knobs and tugging all the ropes.

Over and over and over, how many times can we twirl until the dizziness wins?

2011-03-29T23:13:00.000-07:00

It seems like the two of us are the only ones completely ready and willing to lay this thing to sleep. The rest of our life is attached to itself, to the image and the thought of what we pretended we always were.

--

I haven't sat in any sickening still sadness, I haven't retraced any of my old routes. I haven't needed any of my old safe guards, no distractions, no hiding places. I fall straight to sleep and I wake up rested, unworried, ready. I haven't felt a pit stirring in weeks, I think some may have even gotten lost in the shuffle. It's been spring cleaning and shedding and an abundance of soft growing things and smiles. I've got a new compass and a steady guide and together we're charting a course and the conditions are clear.

I'm trying to be cautious, I swear it's true. But all I could come up with is a silent prayer, a lifting from my core to all that's above, and the tone is always thankful, hopeful, desirous, asking; hoping that's enough. I have my usual safety nets in place from before but by now they wouldn't hold the weight of this, everything is everything.

2011-03-26T17:37:00.001-07:00

And how is it every time things start to fall apart again, before you even know I need you, you find ways to save my days?

2011-03-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

I heard what you said, I've said it to myself and all the other voices of reason have said it in turn.
Be careful, be mindful, be watchful. Be careful careful careful.

I hear, I absorb, I agree and I repeat. Those words stay somewhere on the outskirts of the pools in my heart, whose depths are doubling and tripling each and every time you smile, or your hand touches mine. My mind has a BE CAREFUL banner on display, at every entrance and every exit. The worker ants who live up there and sort and tunnel and connect and move all the feelings into thoughts, all the thoughts into actions, they've all got on BE CAREFUL jerseys, BE CAREFUL baseball caps. But as for me? I'm in that fog right now, the perfect moments of stillness. It isn't clearing or thinning and under that veil I can dance and no one but you sees, no one but you knows where to find me. I can sing out and you'll come, I can even whisper with confidence that this fog doesn't distort or cover, it carries. My hands have memories all their own and each feels naked on their own.. lonely. The rest of my body is a perfectly paved roadway, every turn and rest stop carefully marked in a language I know you alone can read. Just how I want it to be.

And all the other things fade away when you come through the door. There's no room for memory or heartache or the distances that exist or the other things that have been a weight dragging me along the ocean floor. It's like a balloon being set free from a terrible child's grasp, soaring, finally. Tickled by the air and riding the currents, sharing great altitudes with the birds.

Even still my realism is on the forefront of every single thing I do. It's always before my eyes like a parallel universe and through each situation I can see the alternate sides, the what if's. What's missing though is the pessimism, the dreadful waiting I usually do, knowing it's all falling apart at any moment, feeling that I'm riding the river in complete darkness and the falls are just ahead and the roaring tells me I will fall, I will fall. With you I'm not preparing for the fall, I still know somewhere along the river will be rocks and rapids but it's okay.

Somehow it's nothing but okay.

2011-03-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

I didn't know my heart could race that way.
As scared as I'm not, I'm about a thousand times more terrified than I've probably ever been.
But it's not horror-movie-terror, it's not world-disaster-terror.
It's the most amazing kind of terror, that makes your knees weak,
it's exciting and mystifying and terrible and the best thing that's happened in a long time.

I can't sort it and label it like with other feelings, it's too soon.
There's still so much to shed, so many things standing in the way.
What were roadblocks are more like a cement fortress and standing beside I am so tiny.
When I've ever felt large, I can't say when or why but I know it's existed in me before, this makes me shiver from the inside out.
Somehow it doesn't seem impossible, even still. I think that comes from you.

If you can keep this up, I can wind my springs and just maybe we'll get out of this.

2011-03-18T18:43:00.001-07:00

It really is so much easier to forget when you're busy with something else to start trying to remember.

2011-03-17T21:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when my feelings are hurting and someone is talking to me and I'm supposed to be talking back instead my eyes wander and I read things, any things conveniently readable and close by so I don't have to squint and I bounce in and out but with you, I'm really trying to stay focused on one line at a time.

birthday...happy...

2011-03-17T05:11:00.000-07:00

This is hard. This is so so hard.
It was never supposed to end up like this, remember?
Remember when you said no matter what, no matter what...
I can't say this beautifully because I can't even say it at all. Inside or outside, written or spoken.

All the weights I've been lifting so delicately and tragically, they all found a way back this morning the minute my eyes opened.

that song wasn't about you.

2011-03-14T05:35:00.000-07:00

Last night I dreamt that I made us a meal and you came in and snuck up behind me to put your hands right above my hip bones on either side and then you took down my hair and scooped it all in one hand, twisted it round once or twice to tuck it over one shoulder and kiss my neck. You rested your chin above my collar bone and spoke softly. All I did was grin from ear to ear.

2011-03-13T08:09:00.000-07:00

I think my most despised word right now is family.
Filling out forms and checking little squares and feeling like I'm lying.
It's a sick sort of wishful thinking, it's a torturous game of pretend except am I the only one who is still trying (or willing) to play?
It's tiring, where there should be a safe haven, a cave to rest in during the storm, there are other terrors lurking in the darkness.
The waters that should be shallow and calm are black as tar and have extended their depths and what lies waiting is only more of the unknown.

I'm ready to let go, cut my ties and open the cage and spread my wings and leave this place for you.
You can have it all.

2011-03-12T19:03:00.000-08:00

It's time to let go, but I'm still only pretty sure.

keep on

2011-03-11T21:22:00.001-08:00

I can't hold on and wait for some life that's never going to happen.
I want to live the life I dream of now, without you or with you.

If you keep on killing you could get me to settle and as soon as I settle I bet I'll be able to move on.

2011-03-09T19:36:00.000-08:00

I want to say time has sped up, but I'm too old and already know everything is just as it was ticking right on time and it's only me that's off. For a time I was sure quicksand surrounded me and pulled me down but I've only sunk so far, and now I see it's cement and I'm stuck right where I've been. It doesn't seem too stiff or too set on itself yet, I'm just tired and pulling out is.. and really you're the hurricane. If only you would cease for a time, if only some weatherman would move you along down the coast and I could sleep to regain some of my life.

I've been practicing what to tell them about love.

2011-03-08T20:41:00.001-08:00

All I wanted to say is it's okay to let me go.

2011-03-07T08:49:00.000-08:00

I know what I need to do, there are certain conclusions that can be drawn whenever I'm ready to draw them. Others are lost in the frey, they may never come to fruition, they may never realize their own potential and this unrest could last for the rest of time. But I am learning myself and my limits and how far I can be pushed and pulled, how elastic I can be, how much I can let this hurt. But there are some filling the spaces, volunteering themselves to me and we smile and we laugh and it helps me remember I can stop this at any time. I can reach the finish line at your pace or mine. I can make a pro-con list and place things in a proverbial scale and assume the weight of what would be lost, what could be gained. I'm learning your tricks and what skills are required to partition this head and this heart. I want to keep certain things isolated, segregated and locked in pens and not allow the colors to bleed together, as easy as it would be to blame one on the other I know it would blur my vision and I'd lose the path I've chosen. And that's just it, I know what I need to do, which way to walk, it's a matter of not getting distracted along the way; it's a matter of how fast or how slow. Something will come from this, something new or something renewed, but I know nothing will ever be what it was and that is a good thing. It's tricky being durable and flexible; bending but resolute.

2011-03-06T03:26:00.000-08:00

If you ask me how I'm doing, how things are going, I'd probably say okay. Not too bad. So-so.

If I'm being completely honest, I'm terrified. My heart is not mending, the pain is at a standstill but it's bought a one-way ticket for the deepest, most remote parts of my heart, where I can no longer visit. The things that used to live there were so delicate and I'm afraid they've been devastated in the shuffle. I can no longer find them anywhere in me. I've been planning and coaxing myself to try and weasel my way in to where they might be, but in the end I am more destitute when nothing happens. I have been on the cusp, of writing, of creating, of opening up my insides and letting those things fly out. I thought they were speaking to me, calling to me like omens, like dreams, giving me instructions, directions; X marks the spot. Find us, we need you, need to be found, we're fading and you must bring us back.

That's not even the only thing. As many things as I can build up, twice as many crumble behind my back, as soon as I turn to face another direction everything falls to pieces. As I gather the pieces and coat them in glue and lay them out like a puzzle and tear at my eyes to see the fault lines the lights will go out. And if I light a candle the glue has dried. And if I coat them again in glue I find the pieces have rearranged themselves and some have run off.

Is this the meaning of faith?

2011-03-03T05:21:00.001-08:00

I'm finally riding the surface of the storm, the waves are still churning and the sky is wild and my legs are shaking, knees weak, but my heart is finally behaving. At least more so than any recent times. Living and beating, but still, no longer faltering, no more shattering. There's no more time allotted for that. I can finally not look, and if I do peek nothing can be so devastating anymore. I know how the currents work, I've been out on rough seas more times than your hearts have changed course. Regardless of what we do, we are not in control of which way things flow, there are much greater forces at work, hearts and minds dull with time and everything can always be broken. The things that remain will bring us to our ends, whichever shores we need and need us most.

2011-02-28T08:23:00.001-08:00

Did I know it when I first woke up or before I fell asleep? One or another of those times the sinking feeling leveled all on its own and it just didn't hurt so badly anymore. It's not about the you that's been lost, it's about the office you held, the you in theory. What it could have become. It really is silly to think there's only one person we could love. Something clicked in me, maybe it's all the nice in the air. We've been surrounded by it and covered by it and wrapped up in it to sleep. As much as I would hibernate these times away, it's been the necessary route, pain has so much to give. There are always lessons to learn if we're willing to be still and quiet and grow roots and wait and wait until the season's ripe.

2011-02-26T23:31:00.000-08:00

How easily I could forget that the letters don't corral themselves, don't line up nicely and march themselves out. It's possible I've been hoarding them and it's even more possible they've been trying to come out for quite some time now. I think what I'm trying to say is I've been scared to let them go, a true mother goose hemming and hawing, reluctant to say goodbye.

2011-02-26T20:51:00.001-08:00

I could stand at the edge of a waterfall for years, contemplating the jump: the moment my feet leave the ground, curling my body, gaining momentum, descending through the air, seeing what's coming, the moment I close my eyes, the second when my eyes are closed before I break the surface, when the last of my toes dips below the waterline and those weightless moments before I rejoin the world of the walking and talking.

If I could live under water you know I would.

2011-02-25T22:22:00.001-08:00

Surprises in the mailbox that remind me to dream and rearrange the paragraphs in my head.
My hands and fingers are twitching, surging, and a familiar tingle is lurking just beyond what's needed to make them jump. To make them dance, my own ten little dancers in the dark. I can sit above and be their life-line, their life-giver, and similarly just let them go. All these other things start to seem sort of irrelevant in that grand-scheme-of-things way. But they are menacing and trying and they are slow. I had to spend the necessary amount of time digging so deep just to fish out the knots keeping all this tethered tightly to all my parts. Even so only the very tips of my fingertips could reach. Untying is still a great ways away. If these things were just a little varied from themselves perhaps I could operate. Extricate.

There's only one way to wind my spring. All I can do is whatever it takes to find the dreams and start the dances.

2011-02-25T17:03:00.001-08:00

I'm prepared and I'm almost ready to lose you.

2011-02-23T09:21:00.000-08:00

Scary adult things, darkness; a weight hanging over me and around me and attached to me and dragging me down, an anchor and a straightjacket and a prison cell.

Somehow you wake up every day and go to sleep every night and this is not the first and the last and the biggest thing on your mind. Somehow I need to get to my own version of that.

2011-02-22T18:34:00.000-08:00

Honestly what kills, what is killing, is the remembering they will do. At least one of them will do. Remembering for me is not so much an insurmountable obstacle, more or less it can only form a speed bump. I already remember so much, what's another two or three dozen things forced in, like the garbage pail you think is full, or feeling full before dessert. No matter how much there is, there's somehow always room for some more.

I've been writing on paper, thinking of typewriter keys instead of this digital universe, this web of edits and deletes and secrecy. Instead of leaving hints and dropping clues, going straight in for the kill. No more subtleties, just the whole real truth.

2011-02-19T14:48:00.001-08:00

Sometimes they rose up inside her, these moments of fierce happiness, kindling out of their own substance like a spark igniting a mound of grass. It was a joy to be alive, a strange and savage joy, and she stood there in the warmth and destruction of it knowing it could not last.
That it was too big for her to contain.
That it would ebb as quickly as it had risen.

Her life was a waste and a failure, and she had never loved another human being, and she wanted nothing more than to escape the planes of her skin and appear in some other place. The world was unreliable. The world could turn on a dime. It was a joy to be alive when it was a joy to be alive, and it was a terror to be alive when it wasn't. What else had she ever learned?

2011-02-16T13:04:00.000-08:00

Still fragile after all these years, no matter how much I want to be that hard rock,
firm and unmoving, fixed and sure,
I'm a gemstone, waiting to be cradled and held, worn and cherished.

do-overs, take-backs

2011-02-15T13:21:00.000-08:00

I can still be happy for more than half of my life.
I can let all of this go for two hours or four hours or eight hours and do a trial run,
like I need to convince myself that it exists,
and when it goes so well, it's not awkward, even all things considering,
you stepping in, forcing your way in to remind us you won't be ignored.
Still demanding, controlling, trying to make this in to what you want.

This story isn't yours anymore, you're hardly worthy of being mentioned by name.
I'll keep you somewhere in the crowd, an extra, because it's true you'll never be gone,
you'll never be forgotten, we'll never be over, even though this is.

As down as it can get me on the one hand,
I know I have to make it through and there has to come a point when you get bored
or run out of steam, or are fully distracted by your own other things;
when all of this obscure strung out pain and madness,
this battle for nothing can end.

2011-02-15T05:44:00.000-08:00

If that's not the reason then I can't say I know what is.

I wonder how any of this could ever make actual sense, ever again.

2011-02-13T23:25:00.000-08:00

Making the most of the times I have now.
My ears are all the way open.

These words are being crowded out by the other ones, the fun ones.
The ones I've wanted but couldn't find because of these.

Things have their places, and now they will stay in them.

2011-02-12T23:17:00.000-08:00

Lists, boxes, paper cuts.

Those pits and me, me and them pits, the pits and I.

2011-02-12T08:29:00.000-08:00

This is the moment of no return.
Not entirely so, not so permanently.
But it's the first of many of those moments, like checkpoints in my video game life.

2011-02-11T19:24:00.000-08:00

Trying to ignore the feelings and the overwhelming heaviness in my gut. The inevitability of it all; the waiting, the unknown.

You will be your old self no matter where you hide, and I hope I can get my old self out of hiding, she's been away for so long.

2011-02-10T07:34:00.000-08:00

I know there's more to this I need to sort through and release from my depths and it's slowly, slowly, floating upward from where it is I've burried it, forgotten in the dark like a sunken treasure. There's no coaxing it up, it takes its time and it makes me wait. Working on patience and silence since maybe this could change things, change everything or nothing. I can't know until I know.

2011-02-09T17:59:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure I've read or heard or it's common knowledge that when the going gets tough and you keep going and you're doing the "right thing" (which you know based on the watchful eyes of others because you couldn't bare to trust yourself anymore at this point) things don't usually get easier, they get worse. And that's because life is said to be the ultimate test and people have been saying that for centuries and there must be a reason for that.

2011-02-09T07:09:00.000-08:00

Swimming heart open in to open books, fresh pages, virgin words. Putting pens to paper, letting them move, following them where they wish to go. Feeling the sun and pushing down the swirling of everything from my head to my heart to my stomach. You can't rule over those organs any longer. Sticky, dirty fingers and crisp cut edges of paper and images making new images making feelings, forcing the rays out.

Internally smashing the pits and lessening the collection. Too much life could be left to be full already.

2011-02-08T18:40:00.001-08:00

I can't be a babysitter, I can be wondering and watching and wondering and watching, always. Keeping my lantern lit, waiting for the right moment, waiting waiting waiting. But it just costs too much.

A boy called me a diamond. Told me I was beautiful. Told me I was worth anything, everything.

Why am I waiting for you to see I'm alive?

holding on, letting go

2011-02-07T19:04:00.000-08:00

It's easy to let go when there's nothing left to hold on to but those invisible threads are still intertwining everything, always. When you turn your back to walk away and they keep you anchored to where you are, to what things are.

2011-02-06T18:18:00.000-08:00

I can't stop this little heart from breaking,
even when I thought there was nothing left.

Part II

2011-02-05T22:38:00.001-08:00

Flying at night is so completely different. There is no welcoming white blankets or vast blue calm staring back. Instead it's life. Millions of twinkling lives of every color and this is what it must be like to be living a life. Turning lights on and turning lights of. But it takes so much more and yet here they all are doing it.

As we pass other planes in the sky and the cockpits buzz their hellos like bikers on roads, I wonder about all the animals tucked neatly in rows: are they coming or going? are they leaving or staying? are they trying? are they liars?

thirty-two thousand feet

2011-02-05T19:17:00.000-08:00

It gives a whole new sensation to the term 'head in the clouds.' Knowing that everything below is dreary and problematic and so utterly complicated yet here we are: Flight # 1903, flying above the barrier that at least right now is keeping the sun from touching down. It's a new kind of great divide. A real distance between us that someone, some time was paid to measure. That family and friends can track as it grows. It's so easy to forget, especially in these treacherous times, that a sky could be so blue. The clouds are a thick solid entity all their own, today an arctic sea and the ripples and wrinkles and dents further the images of glaciers in my mind. I'm ready to dive in, I'm not afraid of the depths or of what may lay ahead, below or behind. There is no icy chill, only an inviting softness that could lull me straight to sleep. All I see out these tiny oval windows is a bed of freshly picked cotton balls, stretched and folded, beneath the same perfect sky we'd nap together under late in to the days of our summers when nothing was so permanent. The birds and humming mowers and clicks of sprinklers were enough of a lullaby to convince us that all was well. We could rest easy and the world would continue as she always had and when we'd wake nothing would need fixing.

I could stay in this inbetween and watch this cloudy sea and feel this calm and I could sleep here. I could smile when the flight attendants give me more plane shaped cracker bags than I could ever eat and when the proud and wrinkled man next to me slips me his, just in case, for later. And when he says a warm congratulations I can say thank you and be thankful and wonder at their kindness which comes so easily. I am comforted to think as many have said, this too shall pass. I'm not branded with an instigation to hate. I can share a genuine smile when he offers me his economy sized bag of m&ms, which he's chosen to pair with a small plastic cup of chardonay. I can understand how we hold so tightly to our pains and our afflictors, how easily we can let our hearts be weighed and dragging along. But what I've finally understood is how we let go.

Even still it's amazing how we can let go but others may still hold fast and refuse to lighten their grip and that's what creates the pits.

And I can't help but feeling like I'm running away, like I should have been stronger and I should've been able to stay.

someone's going home alone again tonight

2011-02-04T09:45:00.000-08:00

I know it's not false hope because I know it's trying for the sake of saying I've tried. Not because I really think I am influencing any outcomes. In my mind it's already happened, it's all already been figured, it's just a matter of filling the required time to qualify for a moving up ceremony. We should be familiar with this by now. There is no rushing.

Que sera sera.

2011-02-01T16:17:00.000-08:00

Waiting for the words to come out.
Waiting for the time to pass.

Waiting for the sun to penetrate this cocoon I've spun, this coffin I've sealed.
Waiting for you to make the first move, to jump in head first with your eyes closed and your heart open.

Sometimes we have to fish and sometimes we have to dive and dig and wrestle.
Sometimes time moves slowly and we can't stand it but time knows just how long we need.
Sometimes we have to break our own bones and bruise our own skin to realize,
we've been waiting on ourselves.

So much time has passed, so many things have passed us by. Chances, smiles, memories good and bad.
Well it's time to make that move, enough processing, enough wondering and never knowing.
I've stepped out of my underground lair once or twice and now I don't think I can ever go back.

2011-01-30T15:41:00.000-08:00

When it comes right down to it, could it ever have gone any other way? The more I break this down the clearer it becomes that I've been so silly to be shocked. I understand the aches and the constant draining and even the longing. Everything is as it should be, the regrets and the wishful thinking, but the shock is what makes it hard to breathe, what forces my eyes to close and my mind to falter. My own pits to start my own collection.

This isn't the first time and everything now is just too close to everything then to be a mere coincidence. Would things continue in this circular motion and again in a few years we'd be right back where we started? Why would I possibly think there'd only be one mountain to climb and once we made it over it would be nothing but valleys and lake-side views until death?

Why is it so hard not to have expectations, even when you know how hard you should be knowing better? Even when the expectations aren't the result of a situation you've created for another, but based on words they've formed all on their own. It's a matter of follow-through, of honesty. How can you say you're all out of try when your try and I have never met before? It's not so complicated, it's not so far fetched.

I want to come here daily and take even a few moments to gather my thoughts. They are constantly altering and adjusting their course like driftwood in a vast sea and that's where you've left me and so I do what I must not to go under. For that there must be some reason, something that's tethered to my heart pulling me along in all directions except safely ashore. Tomorrow's a new day for the rain or the sun and I'm no weatherman and I carry no maps. I have no internal compass, I go with the currents and I leave it to them to bring me where I need to be.

2011-01-23T10:23:00.000-08:00

It's time to let it all hang out.

I think it's possible that I've gone about this all wrong. I've missed the mark, or maybe I never had a mark and was that the problem? This was over before it began, that's a cliche for a reason just like they all are. But the questions now should be about how to go on from here. I can lay down and die, but that's not easy it's just quick. I can fight but that's not guaranteed and it's so much effort to gain nothing to get no where. To maybe be worse off than we are now? There's no sure-fire cure-all win-win. Those don't ever really exist. When will I learn it's a never ending war, people enter it and people leave it but IT remains. And no one gets out unharmed, I'll be lucky if I get out at all, dead or alive. Maybe it's just war followed by war and even after we die there's no escaping, there's no resting. Aren't I too stubborn to give in first? I always thought I'd be the one to never let go, I'd never be the one to walk away. I don't know which is harder, the walking away or the staying? The fighting or the giving in. What I know is it's all killing me, it's all taking too much, everything's going in and nothing good is coming out. Is that what it means to give it all with no reservations? But if you give until you're out how do you keep on going from there? There was so much more I wanted to see and do and say. Has my time passed already?

2010-12-30T14:58:00.000-08:00

Is it always this hard just barely holding on?
Isn't life supposed to have phases?
How do you speed up the slowing down?

2010-11-05T06:54:00.001-07:00

I know I'm nothing but a big coward now. A shell of my former self. My former little self who I miss so much, she used to run and climb and sing and dance and laugh and laugh and laugh, but she's not me anymore. I don't know when exactly I left her behind, or forced her out, or just buried her alive; but the important part is that I remember being her. I remember what it feels like to not be afraid.

Maybe next time I feel myself slipping away I'll remember to leave a trail of something more reliable and less palatable than breadcrumbs so I can find my way back.

2010-11-01T09:00:00.001-07:00

I just want to be a little less insignificant.

is it at all obvious

2010-10-26T11:45:00.001-07:00

that I have no idea what I'm doing or where I'm going or how to do it or get there?

2010-10-01T19:21:00.001-07:00

Of course it was basically inevitable that I'd discover some way or some other way that we share the same name.

I TOLD YOU SO

2010-09-30T08:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when it rains we wake up and feel sluggish, sometimes even before we knew it was going to rain, or is raining; as if maybe we didn't adjust the pillow or blanket right, got up on the wrong side, like our bodies know before we realize. Sometimes I feel like this too, and other times the rain is like a much needed break. As if the sunshine was a farce and the rain was cruel, bitter, real-life's dress down day. Like nature is putting on a show whenever the sun is shining: Everything is okay! Everyone is good! But when it rains it's like what happens when the curtain goes down after some highly acclaimed broadway production, the costumes are stripped and left strewn about, a flash flood of pigment barrels through pipes and under the ground. Rain is honest.

On days when it rains and I can understand the underlying significance, the deep philosophical longing and fulfillment rain brings I can stand outside under an umbrella or even dripping and drenched with cotton sticking to my skin feeling hydrated straight to my bones, and it's a relief.

So today was one such day.

I stole some time at the water's edge and I tiptoed passed the remains of an old wooden wall, a forgotten broken barrier between the constant rushing and crashing, pulling and dragging, and me. I dare the storm to do its worst. Rain, wind and the tides, I'm not afraid of anything here. I'm not thinking about lightning, or technical terms or how to be smart, I'm only reminding myself of what a weather forecaster let slip out and float, through the storm, through the air, through radio waves and straight to me. Like maybe I was the only one who caught it, like maybe it was a gift from time and from the feeling you get in those moments you know it's more than just a series of obscure coincidences and numbers. Gift-wrapped with a bow and a card and an arrow straight to my heart. My very own gale, with a target painted on my back I know it's heading straight for me, but I stand firm and as tall as I can and remind myself I can't back down. If I back down it won't be easier, it won't be over, the waves will grab hold of my limbs and rip me from the land and what then? There are no ships among the waves, not here, this is only for pleasure sailing. No hardened old men who are doing what needs to be done with teeth chattering in this paralyzing rain. Wind that's knocking me around, just under a hundred pounds worth of girl is no match, this I know. But still I'm grounded, I'm growing roots that allow me to bend and sway but also stay. And the deeper they reach the harder it is to accept what not backing down means, but we'll take it as it comes, one inch at a time.

After the storm

2010-09-17T16:56:00.000-07:00

I'm perfectly content to continue pretending right along with you. Don't worry, I'll keep up.

You should know that on the inside I'm seething though, my gears are turning and I am starting to understand how this works. I'm saving up and I'm taking notes.

So while you all stir up the seas and are never at rest I'll surf along the surface and as things for you start to crumble I'll be half way out of here and once everything has fallen apart I'll send a postcard from where I land.

I'm rebuilding, you're not invited.

STRUGGLING, ALMOST DROWNING

2010-09-15T06:11:00.000-07:00

There just isn't enough quiet to get my thoughts processed and laid out and nicely organized and folded and put away in their proper compartments.

There just isn't enough space in this stale, dark little apartment with no windows to open and no fresh breezes to stir things up.

I want to throw out all of our furniture and put tents up in all the corners with labels on them, SO-AND-SO ONLY! TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. So everytime things are feeling crunched everyone can break and hide in with themselves in their own way, climb back into themselves and eventually come out, or not come out.

sometimes, mostly, maybe.

2010-09-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

So, it doesn't always have to be cryptic here right, I mean that's not what I made this for. I made this for opening the flood gates, for letting my mind and my fingertips wander over the letters together and just let whatever comes out, come out. FOR ONCE. Sometimes I think I am too guarded, too quiet, and I've definitely been too kind.

But what I'm wondering today is about love, LOVE. L-O-V-E.

Does real love mean sharing the same interests and wanting the same things and finishing eachother's sentences? Or does it mean sacrificing what you actually care about and caring (or trying to care, or pretending you care?) about whatever this other person cares about? Does it mean listening (and when we say listening, do we mean REALLY HEARING or pretending to listen and adding in mmhms and uuhuhs to sound believing?) to what they want to talk endlessly about, or can we be honest and say I DON'T SHARE THIS INTEREST AND I DON'T NEED YOU TO EXPLAIN THIS TO ME FOR FIVE HOURS, BECAUSE I DON'T CARE. Does it mean being honest with them or does it mean being honest with them about yourself but not about them. Does it always come easily or is it a full time job? Can you really fall into it, does it really just show up at your door or do we search for it? When (if) we find it, is it easy to keep or is it a constant struggle?

You aren't supposed to change this person, and they aren't supposed to change you, but how do you mold together two lives unless they are already similar, if no one changes?

I just don't know. Is it supposed to be mysterious? Is it supposed to be the kind of thing that people describe by saying YOU'LL JUST KNOW. YOU'LL JUST FEEL.

WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE WHY?

what I realize and try to accept daily

2010-08-25T07:04:00.000-07:00

You have nothing to offer me, the only one who can fix this mess is me.
It's hard, it's painful, it's slow, slow, slow but I can't lay down and I can't stop moving. The minute I let up I'm blown over by the slightest of breezes, the raging torrent takes over, the current pulls me in all the wrong directions and the sea swallows me whole. And no one's gonna pull me out. Fight for your life Fight for your life FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE.

what's lacking

2010-08-19T12:33:00.000-07:00

Still moments when you can ignore the cars in the background, feel the sunshine prickling your skin and suspend yourself amidst the bugs and the birds and the sounds tall old trees make when they bend with the breeze.

Waking up on the right side of the bed.

Secret garden days.

working backwards

2010-08-12T10:10:00.001-07:00

Getting ahead of myself trying to catch up and cross things off lists and move things off of backorder to the front of my brain.

Cross examining my tracks, filling in missed days with pretend feelings felt on other dates, I went through a * phase in February.

This is the beginning of the new beginning again, for the zillionth time.

Don't fall behind, don't fall behind, and please don't run out of gas.

pouring some of my insides out

2010-08-08T18:49:00.000-07:00

IT'S STILL SUMMER FOR NOW

2010-08-03T08:57:00.001-07:00

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It's occured to me I haven't restarted my computer in at least 2 months.