Riddled With Lack

Steal my heart
and play it again
and again
but I'll always remember when
I felt like I really knew you
really saw through you
and like maybe you loved me
in your way
not now
in spite of what you say...
so my heart might break
every time I wake
to the reality of where we are
separate, and so far
and riddled with lack
but I'll always take you back.

The Tension

I'm in this conflicted place where the things that I want and want to do, don't really go together. Something I think that I feel and think and write about all the time, but I'm feeling...and thinking and writing about it again.

It becomes even harder to decide what to do, when all of the things will inevitably fight against one another; if something wins out, something else with inevitably lose. Tough times being a dreamer. And some may call it naive, but I don't believe that any of those things aren't possible, or likely; it just depends on where I set my sights.

I toil over the yearning to travel. I love being on the road, or at the airport. Even just in the waiting, I love it. Every minute. A short stint is always worth while, but I constantly think about taking a personal sabbatical of sorts. Just go somewhere, and then go somewhere from there...but one could argue that's just life. Then I get nagged by the pressure that that isn't really going anywhere; isn't really compounding on valuable life experience, in the career-building sense. And it's selfish. I don't want to travel because I want to be a missionary, I want to travel because I like to see different things. I want to travel because there's so much to see. It really is that simple. I want to see it. That's selfish.

I have a family that fortunately all lives centrally right where I am. I have a church that I'm involved in leadership at, and have been a part of the community for five years - that's more time invested than my college career! I have friends here that I'd miss desperately if I didn't get to see them on the regular. Uprooting my life to just travel kind of squashes the good things I have here. There are seasons for taking that hit, but for as much as I long to do that, this is not that season. The realization and subsequent coming to terms with that fact is a hard pill to swallow.

Then there's the age-old question of what do I want to do with my life and time. Being a barista, while fun, is not in fact my life's calling. It's satisfying for now, but I still spend my time thinking and dreaming of what I could do; might do. I love writing, if I could write and get paid the tiny little salary that I do as is - that'd be brilliant! Somehow finding those two things in combination also requires several years of experience, and maybe a Master's. If I jump on the grad school train, do I want to do it just so I can write and make ends meet? Again, seems selfish. I could probably do better things with my time than revel in my personal interests.

They're also not bad, or pursuits that society would see as self-seeking...but I do. I guess I'm self-conflicted; living in the tension of being an ever-curious, wanderlustful, depth-seeking, people-person (so many hyphens...).

A Tear for Friendship

Last night I cried one reluctant tear,
For a friendship lost - though not unto death,
This morning I cried many a joyous tear,
For a friendship that lingers,
and into life.

Laughter

I like to be made to laugh; I like people who make me laugh. I like that laughter is a natural, physical reaction to a mental stimulus; i.e. a psychophysiological response. And a positive one.

Much like how resting a hand on a hot stove causes the brain to quickly send a message to pull back, something tickling the funny bone causes the physical (and chemical) reaction that is laughter. Not only do we tend to wiggle and make noise when something strikes us as silly, but the brain then releases dopamine and adrenaline. Interesting that somewhere in there, what seems to be instantaneously, a cognition transmits a message to the body of the need to laugh, which in turn sets a chain reaction leading back to the mind, releasing hormones in the brain that make us feel happiness and - essentially - alive.

Adrenaline and epinephrine are the same. In reading up on it and dopamine, it's found that increases in epinephrine in rats also made them "capable of doing more work". So if your boss is killing the fun in the workplace, maybe turn them towards some science.

Fascinating to me that there is this whole process that springs within split-seconds of hearing a joke, or seeing a funny face. Never mind the science behind hearing or seeing that something, and subsequently processing it, then finding it humorous to set off the whole series of events. And this is just the dumbed-down after ten minutes researching on the internet version!

The body is amazing; laughter is amazing.

Present Sensory Moment

Tired body,
famished ears.
Sore soles,
heavy breath and lids,
stinging skin,
aching back.
hair in my face,
but I don't mind.
Limits pushed, and then pushed again.
Cool, tangy tart booze,
buzzes over my tongue and sinks down my throat.
Aching back.
Tight legs;
aching back.
Slow, weighted movements.
Slink lower,
horizontal.

For No Real Purpose

"How many sheets do you own?" you'd ask as I roll up the dirty one like a mother would a diaper. "Not enough," I'd say, "not enough. I have a lot of books though, more than I have read, or probably ever will read in my life. I like collecting them. I like the way they smell; new or old. I like the way they look. I have two sheets. I have a scattered collection of postcards.

I especially like coffee table books, but they run more expensive than other books, because there are more pictures which is more expensive to print. Which also makes them more interesting and accessible to an attention deficit, mildly dyslexic, sensory learner such as myself.

I'm also terribly forgetful, I think because I'm trying so hard to gather and store away facts all the time. Then some things stick though I don't intend them to. It's the main reason I journal, partially to keep record of anything important, but also to process things.

All of my journals are green in color scheme. I suppose that'd be another of my collections. I've probably filled about ten of them since age 12 or so. I debate making it known in my will, someday, that they should be burned.

See, sometimes I just feel the need to write, even if not for eyes to see; for no real purpose. I also know I'll write something of purpose in my lifetime, though I don't know what."

Don't You Dare Cry!

From the place where I sit (with my trust placed firmly in the Lord) the emotions surrounding a deployment aren't so much about fear of safety. I don't fear the safety. The last time my brother was deployed was when God led me to the passage Psalm 91 which was a comfort then and has been ever since. A part of which reads,

Though a thousand should fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. ... [His angels] will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

There was something so flooring to me; so undoubtedly strong about being so protected that you could not even stub your toe. For these eight years, that's how that verse has held me.

So don't say sorry to me as if someone's died; don't look at me, trying not to cry (unless you've been there). And don't think that I'm being nonchalant when I talk about it, because...I just sort of don't want to. And no one's died! I think that's the biggest part of why I haven't talked about it, I don't fear the danger, and I don't analyze or judge the cause; I feel the separation. A thing that it's fine to have been ignorant of, but now you know.

The real weight of it is that it's hard to be separated from someone you love. There's a heaviness that comes with fully acknowledging and realizing the time span that is a year, without seeing someone you love. It's something we're rarely faced with. It's okay to sympathize, empathize - whatever, but pray for the missing. Pray for the times when life for him will feel confusing because there are months on end, spent with faces that aren't family, though are loved ones. Pray for the times when a hug would be best, but cannot be.

And if you ask, know that if I cry it's because a year is a long time, not because I'm scared of being robbed of a life, but of the ache of being robbed of time.

For my C.B. (cuddle brother), will be counting the days til we can hug again.

The Five Year Mark

Being the mildly self-absorbed, wildly nostalgic person that I am, I tried to sit down and think about my year and which of its pieces were significant. I couldn't come up with enough highlights, which while it may sound sad, there are times for that. I had a lot of challenges in the year, but a lot of laughter and a lot of awesome moments, too.

On my drive home tonight, I remembered that this time of year holds two big anniversaries which are at their five-year-mark. Both have had a great effect on who I am now, and it's flooring me to think that it's been that long! This last weekend would've been the five year mark at my church, Mercy Vineyard, and today - give or take - would be the fifth year living on my own in Minneapolis. (Obviously minus some stints here or there, for YWAM and such.)

Seven different living situation; a mixture of roommates I'd just met, good friends, and best friends. Five years of getting to know my neighborhood, building memories, becoming fond of certain streets (see opening sentiment). The other day, as I drove down Central just past Broadway toward downtown, I had that realization that though I've moved so many times nothing since living on my own has quite felt like home, Northeast Minneapolis feels like home. Any one of the exits from 35W, and I begin to feel that coming home feeling. I remember as a kid, I knew the feeling of our exit ramp when we'd come home late, returning from a vacation. The feeling of something familiar, and comfortable; like stepping into an old, broken-in shoe.

Mercy is some metaphorical part of that shoe, - for a play on words, the sole? Really, my faith has grown so greatly there in a way I am so grateful for. It wouldn't have the richness it does from the things I've learned and discussed there. I wouldn't have really any of my circle of friends, let alone most of my best friends! Who knows if my faith would've sustained at all. I'm grateful that the Lord brought me to the exact place I've needed to be all these years, and for the experiences that have tagged along with that. The facets of a walk with Him that have caught light in my life seem to have exponentially multiplied, and while that can't all be attributed to one church, Mercy has certainly been the common denominator.

Interesting to me that the two have the same timeline; that just when I was going into the world in a new way, naively unaware of just how big of a deal it could have been, God tugged me easily into a community ready for me. The two really had to coincide. And when I think back on these last five years the good and the difficult, I can't help but call that more reflection of His goodness, in my life.