Christmastime: Anxiety, Pain, Grief, & Hope

"Remember that if it’s heavy and ill-fitting, if it’s a burden, you don’t need to hold it." Sarah Bessey

This has been yet another hard year and as Christmas (my favorite holiday) comes around, I've had a lot of anxiety. To be honest, this entire year I've had a lot of anxiety. It took me a while to realize that was what was gnawing at me, but since I have it's been a strange relief. In realizing and recognizing the places of pain in my life, I have found so much more freedom and peace in sitting with those things, in tension with desiring hope for the future. I don't have a ton of hope right now, and it seems every time I've gotten it something else tries to squash it. Instead, I've noticed the simple pleasures that can tend to get overshadowed by the hard things.

The above quote (and blog) from Sarah Bessey spoke to me. Not all of it resonated in a deeply felt way, but more in a weary nod of agreement from the heart. I've learned a lot about grief in ways I wasn't expecting to; in ways I didn't know I still needed to. Of course in the throes of pain and immediately after, you think you've known enough of it. In that, I've learned a thing or two about resilience, too.

Resilience isn't necessarily the springing back up from a blow with enthusiasm that we may think of it as. It's more of a rolling on your side, catching your breath, processing what happened as best as your brain will let you, and slowly steadying yourself into an upright position – in stages. Grief and pain can be slow. I was so tired from grief and pain in the previous year, I didn't want to do it again this time. I was so deeply angry for being forced back down into the hurt, and I didn't want to deal with it, so I laid there for a while – as Brene Brown puts it in her book, Rising Strong, I was "facedown in the arena." It wasn't until maybe August I realized and fully admitted to myself that I was in grief again. And November revealed to me that I had grief yet to come from my first relationship.

What's surprising is that I thought this year was the lowest I've ever felt, until I got wind of some startling news: my first love is marrying someone else. That's the lowest I've felt in nearly a decade; my heart broke all over again. It scared me, the depth of isolation I felt. Still even writing this, thinking about that makes my eyes well up with tears.

And we first connected at Christmas time, three years ago, spent one together as a couple. Then by the following holiday season I was falling in love again, which I thought was maybe the redemptive plan to follow the long, drawn-out heartache. I thought I'd found what must be better for me. But as fast as it started and high as it rose, it more quickly and ruthlessly broke my newly healed heart.

I learned so much in this past year about pain that I know will help the next time I get knocked off my feet. I'm certainly no longer naive enough to think I'll be ready, if anything I know you never are, but I know that even in the very lowest I can hang on. That's resilience. It's by no means a strength of my own, but the things curiosity and others have taught me. Those who showed up in the pain and let me sob on them, or repeat my pain in words so worn out. Those people saved me. Curiosity about how our consciousness is a blend of mind and heart that can be experienced but also managed; learning that the darkest of dark feelings are real, but not true. Not everyone is so lucky – and yes, it seems like luck. Perhaps some want to call it grace, which if it suits you, by all means. To me, it seems like luck that when I felt like life is possibly too painful to endure, I found it in myself to grapple for hope in spite of myself – not because I have some virtuous ability others aren't as fortunate to have, surely not because my faith is strong.

It was actually knowledge that helped me. I write this with a dual purpose: first, to give voice and validation to others experiencing a hard time or a hard year. The second is to tell them it's possible to get through the low moment, even when it doesn't feel like it. One of the best things I've heard in a long time is your feelings are real but they aren't true. When life feels like it's too much to handle, it is right now but it won't always be. Sometimes that's as close as we can come to having hope, and that's okay, because it's enough to actually get us to tomorrow.

A practical thing I learned this year was to notice what I'm feeling (not to be confused with reacting or acting out of emotion), and not surprisingly I noticed my anxiety piquing as Christmas started to come around this year. Which I suppose is the final, bonus message: painful spots might still hurt even after you think they're done hurting, but it's okay. Getting comfortable with the idea that there is pain in life is important, but with a sense of compassion for yourself (not suck-it-up-ism!).

So as I approach Christmas, I hold the tension of weary hope for better love and renewed joy in the future, with feeling anxious about embracing the pain that will inevitably hook me in the next few weeks. Within that, I will also take Sarah's words of wisdom to heart, and I hope you will, too.

The Real Thing

I've been feeling like there's a strong juxtaposition from intentional dating and online dating, but I haven't been able to put my finger on it but it sort of just dawned on me in twofold:

I recently went out on a few dates with a guy, we'll call him Andre. Throughout the dates, there were things I didn't like but was trying to be open-minded and go-with-the-flow. After all, the most recurrent unsolicited dating advice I get is to not be so picky (which to me sounds a lot like lowering your standards or expectations, or turning off that little voice in your head that's skeptical). It's not like it wasn't enjoyable to spend time with him, but it wasn't enthralling like the beginning of either of my two relationships. I had moments of not fully liking my time with Andre; he was alright, but underwhelmed me. For having these qualities that interested me, much of the rest of him didn't, and some things even turned me off of him. That probably sounds harsh, but it just wasn't there and I wish I hadn't ignored it when I sensed it.

And therein lies the problem: it seems in online dating I have to let my guard down more because my gut tells me that certain things are yellow flags, which is not very open-minded. When really, I think I've let other people's advice get in my head too much. If it were up to just me, I'd trust my gut, which was usually telling me the right things in hindsight. And truthfully, it is up to just me. It's not anyone else's call, because it's not theirs to live with. For instance, with Coffee Shop Guy, had I better listened to my intuition, I could've avoided some things that were detrimental to our relationship. If I had been better attuned to myself...

Then it's that there's something about just noticing someone in life that works better for me. Online seems to be more about curating, or forcing something to be interesting because you should, if you want it to be successful. And it seems because there are all these options out there, one should be able to find tons of suitable people to date. The reality is that it's rare to find someone you feel intrigued by, turned on by, and excited to be with, and for it to be mutual. It's not like opening an app suddenly presents a huge selection of potentially dreamy, magnetic lovers ripe for the taking. But that's the illusion, which adds a pressure to the process and the act of swiping.

Frequenting an establishment and noticing someone, the way their face looks when they think or how their eyes sparkle when they talk, or how they put on their jacket, – all the while wondering who is this human that's become irresistibly fascinating – found simply by existing in the same space. Or noticing someone who's been under your nose, who you've known for a decade without a clue you could be best friends and that they're quietly so very cool.

It's hard to expect someone's fish and football pictures combined with an extensive three sentence self-description to stir the same wild curiosity that can organically bubble up in you when crossing paths with another human in real life.

It's hard to beat the real thing.

Never Again Mine

My heart broke all over again;
I cracked in half.
I don't know how to love in part
and the dying off is painful –
Being pulled apart
While trying to hold
myself together
But at the thought
again I crumble:
You will never again be mine,
Though always
in my heart.

Keeping Time

I'm the sentimental type. I think about anniversaries, they're etched onto my mind in a way it practically helps me keep time. But it's almost been a year and I'm at least okay now, but I still don't understand what happened. I live with a daily melange of feelings of love and hatred, and no place to put them but let them simmer in me and maybe, if I'm lucky, they'll just evaporate.

See just a year ago, my heart would change in a way I didn't think it ever could – though, truthfully, it also didn't. Maybe some people can do the love and let go thing, but I'm not cut out for that. Just a year ago, in spite of this, I finally managed to let go. Then a mere few weeks later a man came into my life and casually charmed me off my feet. Impossibly cool, but aloof so it didn't seem to matter to him that he was cool...which made him even more attractive. (Yes, I see the cliche.) I usually have a good read on people, I kind of get how we work and how we interact with each other, I feel like I can often see through people to their motivations and values. Yet somehow I got duped.

I tried to move on, thought I was ready and it would take someone else proving to me that not all that's left out there are emotionally stunted men who are so cool they'll break your heart without remorse -- icy. I tried to move on and one mediocre or crappy instance after another, I'm finding myself feeling discouraged and yet with clarity. The good old-fashioned way really knocked the wind out of me a time or two, so I go through these phases of attempting to date the modern way: apps. It always seems to go a variety of ways, none of which are successful. There was the zero chemistry guy, the CSG doppleganger who was also too cool for human decency and communication, and the guy who doesn't know what "no" means, or "owe" or "don't". That last one, left me missing the aloof emotionally closed-off guy because at least he was respectful of my body and my "no". And that left me missing the one that couldn't be. Which then made me realize, I need to get comfortable.

I hate being single, because compared to having someone who knows all about your life, checks in on you and thinks about you daily, and is gaga for you, and on and on – compared to that, being single sucks. I wish there were a more eloquent way to say it, but I don't have the patience and, well, it's a thought for another time.

Almost a year ago I was high and dry in life - no job, broken heart still mending, long overstaying in a place that was meant to be temporary. I can't help but look back at that version of myself and envy her. She didn't know life was just winding up to take another swing the second she'd get back up, that that handsome guy stealing glances at the coffee shop would break her heart all over again, too soon and too carelessly. I envy her because she didn't know it would get so hard again.

The me now? She knows that you don't find the real good stuff all that often and you can't force it where it isn't. She knows that no one's really deserved her since the first one. She knows that was special and to look for something like it. Hoping? That's another story.

How #MeToo Got Real

I'd had enough to say #metoo when the wildfire spread a few weeks ago. Even if you set aside the catcalls or "hey babys" of life in a female body, there was Rome.

A crowded subway car, me in light-airy mediterranean pants, and some guy thought it was his prerogative to touch my ass. At first I thought it was just the tight quarters and an accidental graze. However, as the ride went on, I realized it was intentional. I'd always envisioned myself as some kind of a hero in a moment like this, defensive and vocal. After I exited the subway, heart pounding, I went back to my hostel only to turn and leave on the bus headed to the airport to leave Rome. I sat down on the bus, and that's when it set in. I'd had no control over the situation; I didn't speak the language, I was an obvious tourist and I was trapped in that metro car with someone taking advantage of my body, whom I couldn't even see. On the bus ride to the airport, I cried because my body was used without my permission for the gratification of another. 

No one should ever be made out to be merely a commodity for their body.

Sure, the metro was uncomfortable and I was violated, but last night my #metoo got even more real... 

Apparently by the third date a guy can push a woman's boundaries and do things she didn't agree to. I won't go into detail because it isn't anyone's business whom I don't choose to tell, but my body was a commodity; something to be used, in spite of my requests, in spite of my voicing of discomfort and pain, in spite of my "no's". I didn't realize it until I left that something felt off and yet I felt relief the moment I stepped outside. I wondered to myself as I drove home feeling a little numb, was I just sexually assaulted? 

When I settled into my bed, icing my neck to hopefully reduce the appearance of three large, unwanted, protested hickeys, it hit me the answer was 'yes'. The quiet little strange feeling I had was from being cornered, being stuck in a situation where I felt powerless and weak. I'd generally consider myself a strong, independent woman who doesn't live much of life guided by fear. Still, I found myself in a scenario where I was not being respected and I was incapable of rendering a different outcome. Afraid. Intimidated. Scared. There aren't even many times in my life I've actually felt scared. So, as I laid there with a bag of frozen food on my neck, I cried. 

All thanks to the guy who was self-proclaimed "different from the rest." I'd liked him because he was happy-go-lucky and talkative, he'd voiced how he cried easily at movies, he even made me a delicious dinner. That guy made me feel afraid and ignored my "ow" and "ouch" and "no" and "don't". That guy thought he could text me something cute today about how he gave me three large hickeys (never mind that it was clearly against my will), which I had to cake in concealer and cover in a scarf. My response was a lengthier, more convicting and educational version of "Boy, bye!"

I cried a little more this morning, but mostly at the thought of the fear that I'd had. It was something new, this experience. Getting catcalled feels like a weak threat tied to expectation of appreciating the "compliments" and it's uncomfortable; being touched without permission by a perfect stranger is a personal violation and it is frightening; but being made to feel in fear of your safety, and unable to voice the feeling in the moment, that is alarming and disgusting. Other women have been in that position and had worse, and the thought of what happened to me makes me uncomfortable and angry and scared. 

For some reason, I felt I should write about this although I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe because we need to stop blaming women? Maybe because we need to stop saying that women are exaggerating or being "emotional"? Maybe because men need to face the reality of how much more physically powerful they are than us and not take that responsibility lightly? Maybe because women deserve more respect? All of the above.

So, #metoo.


NOTE: I don't write it to be asked about it. I don't write it for sympathy. But if it should help someone feel like their experience is valid and they should tell someone, or seek help for processing a sexual assault, that I wrote it for.

To know again

I have so much skepticism in me, and when I think of curling up somewhere safe and warm -- it's in your arms. You let me be, better than I ever could've understood then. You loved me, magnificent and raw and broken, for which I will forever be grateful and always long to know again, if life should be so kind.

To Put Off the Conscience

My life seems to say to me: remember that time you got your heart broken, oh and that OTHER time, and when you didn't matter to that person enough to have a conversation, or not enough to that person to bother to see you, or that person to pay attention to you?

And it stings. And aches. The place where the wound was gets poked and prodded again, the moment it seems to heal.

And I wish I knew what it was like to be able to put off the conscience and do what I wanted to, even if it hurt others...and yet, there are constant reminders of what that looks like in our world. It is the reason anyone is on the receiving end of something painful, even life-threatening, and I don't want to be the cause of that in someone else's life.

Pain can teach you that you need to harden yourself, or it can teach you not to be hardened toward others; rather to value them. Wounds can cause you to unleash pain on others like a wrath and continue to ache on the inside in a way that oozes outward to infect - or they can cause you to take care not to be a hypocrite with intentional actions and words.

More than anything I find myself prone to indignation that these are the ways we find it acceptable to act and to use the privilege of the time we've been given and one another's company.

That I Love You, I Couldn't Help Myself

I didn't love you just because you were there,
but because I couldn't help myself;
I wanted to spend as many waking moments with you
Learn as much of who you are and what made you that
Hear as much of your thought and as much of your voice
See as much of your eyes meeting mine as possible.
I loved you because I couldn't help myself; You were magnetizing, and I cared about your inner world -- little did I know -- in a way you didn't about mine.
If you would've let me, I would've orbited around you and reflected your wonder back to you.
You didn't,

and I don't know what you wanted, to this day.
I don't know what
I even knew of you -- did I even know you?
Who are you?
That I love you --
And it resounds like a rock
tumbles into an abyss...
that I love you.

Life in the Gray

Lately I'm floating on a sea of so many questions, so much uncertainty. I'm someone who likes to ask, likes to seek, and likes to find. It's been a while since I've found much, but I'm still asking and still seeking. Some of it has been quite painful, I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge the depth of pain that has also been with me through the questions. But I ask. And I seek.

One thing that is not a concrete "answer" but one I'm finding as I ask the questions is that some things in life are just in the gray. There has to be space for wonder and questioning and seeking and growing and stretching and withdrawing. We seem to want so badly to have answers, sorting everything by rule into the black or the white. But I've been finding I cannot live without the questions; I cannot push them away and live as if they do not beckon me to examine them.

Even as I write this, I am sitting a few feet away from a family eating dinner at this same cafe. The couple's young son is questioning everything, and it's like music to my ears. Drink it in young one. Ask the questions and seek to understand.

Because the thing I'm learning is I'm better for seeking to understand rather than just taking things as they come, without wonder. Some answers are harder to come by, and may look more gray than black or white. Learning to live in the discomfort of questions unanswered has made me stronger, increasing my endurance for the gray of life – of which there is so much, if we're honest with ourselves. At first, this state of unknown was taxing, and it's still less comfortable than certainty, but it's helping me become better and stronger, and more empathetic.

And I think that's an option with everything we encounter in life. Not just what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but every pain, every hard place can be something that breaks you down a bit more, or helps you become stronger, and better, even if worn. I'm not to the 'better' yet – though I feel good today – I'm seeing more how there is courage in facing the fear of the unknown and the pain.

by you, I suffer

You...

A beautiful,
dark
figment
of my imagination.

Kanye calls it his beautiful dark twisted fantasy,
but
I don't think
you were my fantasy
cause
even my nightmares
aren't
that dark,
usually I just die
or run and save the world,
not suffer --

by you, I suffer.

Scary Moments, Strength, & Wonder Woman

So if you haven't noticed lately, I'm still a mess. And in the past few days it's felt quite heavy. Maybe it's just going back to work after laying around existing and attempting to tune out physical pain for two weeks. In the heaviness, I've found myself angry; I'm angry that he put me here without remorse. I'm angry that I find myself in pain that's hard to wade through and keep afloat in. I'm angry that I was more committed and it hurts like hell.

I've been struggling a lot, and constantly trying to figure out where I can fit in therapy, can I afford therapy, and where do I find a therapist that I actually like, and can I practice therapy someday when I feel right now like I'm falling apart, and how does one get medicated? Like I'm that kind of mess. I should be working right now, but I just can't get my weary heart to write about insurance.

So just the other day I was thinking about it all. I read a past facebook post about God only knows what (I post all the time). I thought about how I used to be strong. At first this thought bothered me, it's been a recurring thought throughout this...thing, and it made me sad. But then I remembered something else: I was just as vulnerable at my strongest. Feeling weak and broken doesn't mean I'm no longer strong.

I saw Wonder Woman last night, and without giving too much away I'll say: I needed it. You've got this incredibly powerful, strong woman and a part of her strength and her very purpose is to be courageous enough to believe in the good of mankind – and then do something about it. I caught myself feeling empowered watching a super hero movie. She was both fierce and vulnerable. It was brave to believe the things she did, yet she wasn't spared the pain it brought.

And you see, I sort of realized it's hard to be strong when being strong also means being vulnerable. Sometimes, or what can feel like oftentimes, that vulnerability gets you hurt. Loving with your heart wide open can leave you faint and weary. But I came to another conclusion, too...

Tonight I saw a friend of mine going through it. She wearily asked, "How can it be like this when I've done all I can?" Her sentiments resonated with me, not just from my recent relationship debacle, but from life. Then I found myself saying something to her that, in my own haze of struggle, I needed to hear:

You're strong! Don't let a scary moment make you forget it.

I have been stuck in a real pain that I'm still not fully sure how to dismantle and I certainly haven't had luck wishing away, but I can choose strength. It's hard, and it doesn't feel good, or secure sometimes, but I can draw on my strength. It isn't gone, I can call it up and find it again.

Just yesterday I told myself I can and will be strong again...but by this morning at my desk I forgot. As I said just a bit ago, I decided I don't want to let the scary moments make me forget my strength anymore.

What We Do When We Avoid Pain

My life has felt like a mess. My worldview is teetering on edge because I can't make sense out of so many painful things happening over and over. Being teased with good things, only to have them ripped away cruelly. I've felt like a broken record because I know I've talked about it so much, but I also feel like I've hardly been listened to. It's why I write about it.

A minute to at most a few minutes into talking through any one painful part of my life and how stuck I feel, I'm usually offered a solution. As if the thing that's been on cycle through my mind for weeks and months can suddenly make sense to someone who listened to me talk about it for a minute – suddenly they have an answer. Usually it's that "everything will be fine", or it'll turn around. I believed that, for a while. Then it felt like things were turning around, until they weren't anymore. Until something else bad happened, followed by something else; until I lost the job I loved when I was house shopping, until I got my heartbroken yet again, and then after having my hope naively reignited, having it crushed again. Stuck in places of pain like being in a boat with a hole, bailing water out as it comes in.

I'm still sad a lot. I'm still looking for sense and meaning a lot. And the thing is I just want that to be heard and held, not fixed because I have the utmost doubt that just chinning up will fix this. For so long I felt not like myself, so long that it now feels like the new normal. At the same time, I still feel like I have to argue to have the pain in my life recognized and not brushed over.

I know: people don't know what to say to pain and often they just say something. I'm getting used to that, learning to have grace for it. But I also wish there was a greater effort to learn to think before speaking to a person in pain. I catch myself doing it, too, all the time. If there's one valuable thing this time in my life has taught me, it's to take pause before responding to a person in pain. My whole life I was that positive, look-at-the-bright-side person, so I still do it too, but I'm striving and learning to allow people to be in their reality.

See, being the one who sits and really listens, believing for something better without voicing it – that is a link to the hope outside the reality that the darkness hides. Sometimes life can be so painful, it makes it incredibly difficult to hope; it becomes scary, not just like how hope is often a risk but a thing that is truly hard to do. When we avoid another's pain by assuming they can take hold of hope, we leave them in that darkness to fend for themselves.

In these months that have stretched on farther than I'd ever imagined they would, the best words I've heard over and over again came from my best friend: "That must be so hard." They didn't make the pain disappear, they soothed simply by being with me in the reality that this is so hard.

What I Learned About Love

I can't tell you how many times I've thought to myself how pathetic I must be in the last two months. Pathetic! Constant ups and downs of missing someone who won't even acknowledge me, who didn't even value me enough to dignify me with a face-to-face conversation about the end of our relationship. I've missed that guy so much and it has felt pathetic. Why do I miss him? I have trouble letting go.

Even amongst feelings of anger and half-joking comments to my friends about how I'd like to key his car, I missed him. A lot. For weeks I've woken up with him as the first thought in my head, several of those times starting my day with a cry because this is what it is and there's not a damn thing I can do. I cared for someone and I miss him, and that hurts.

It's a familiar process, even though it's a different relationship than my last. The other one only just stopped hurting, it seems, but otherwise still feels fresh so I can't help but note similarities in processing another chance at love lost. See I thought after my first relationship I'd never feel excited or passionate about another man. I'm a loyal person, so I thought no one else would make me feel that way, could be that comfortable and easy. I thought I'd always feel like he was missing from my life. And for a long several months it did. But even after the dust fully settled, and I'd even moved on and been hurt by another, I realized I still love him. I'm not pining, I have no desire to pursue anything, but I still care.

I noticed it a time or two over the last year, and figured it was just that not enough time had passed. Especially before having another relationship, I thought I just hadn't fully found a way to move on. While that's partially true, the attachment was real and the separation painful, felt unnatural. And that's where I came to realize something: I was wrong when I thought I'd never feel a strong connection and love again, as if I thought I'd spent what I had to give. I wouldn't recommend trying to love someone romantically more than once (I hope, if anyone else, it's only one more) because it wears on the heart, but it can be done.

Just in this past week I started to feel normal again, not like I'd forever wake up each morning and cry, prying myself out of bed. The strange thing is that even while starting to feel normal and not broken, I still miss him. I still pray for him (nearly the only prayer I can muster, lately). I still just want to sit on his couch and listen to music and talk – and that thought still makes me tear up. Even though I'm starting to heal, still...

What I learned is that love isn't meant to be a passing thing, which is why ending a relationship that had it is so very painful. The love continues to persist in you without its object. Hence grief commonly becomes a companion. Painfully it doesn't displace love. But neither did loving once already inhibit me from it again. The beautiful, hopeful thing is that it's not all used up; I have not run out of love. Same in romantic relationships as with friendships long gone, the love leftover doesn't keep us from finding that there's more to be had and more to be given.

And the stuff that remains, it's okay.

Skateboarding, Good Tunes, & the Hots

It was about a week or two ago when I began to feel a little self-conscious that I'm still stuck on this confusing, painful end. I started to wonder if there's something wrong with me. I date a guy for a little over a month and fall head over heels hard, but it ends abruptly. Then I wait idly by for weeks in intermittent fits of anxiety to find out if he would break my heart more or indeed take me back as pondered over a lengthy cup of coffee just days after breaking up. The answer [eventually] was a firm and unkind no, which I then struggled to make sense of. 

And it was a week or so ago that I thought there must be something wrong with me for missing this guy in my life who hurt me so. It occurred to me I needed a fresh start, a ray of hope: I needed to go on a date. Where does one procure a date these days? On any number of phone apps, duh. Much to my surprise, I quickly had one set up. I thought, I've dated two guys who were "my type" and had an eery amount of interests in common, maybe I should give someone I wouldn't expect a chance. I'd begun to think that having common interests was a pitfall to my relationships, so maybe I ought to look for someone who had the big things and whatever else might not matter. 

Well, moral of the story is and will always be trust your gut. Which is to say, it was a dud. Part way through the date, a mere hour in, I felt relatively apathetic (in hindsight it probably also meant I wasn't actually ready to go on a date). I thought of the way I felt about Cute Coffee Shop Guy on our first date, or the Bearded Lutheran (I'm giving him that moniker as I'm sure he'd like it anyway) on our first date – pure excitement, intrigue, giddiness. Throughout processing the big breakup last year, and even this one, I've had people try to convince me that all that isn't important. This uninspiring date helped me to see otherwise. 

The problem with either failed relationship wasn't ever that there was a strong mutual attraction, great chemistry, and a plethora of shared interests. Both failed for other, greater reasons that couldn't be superceded by the attraction, the chemistry, or the interests. That doesn't make their ends any less painful, or me any more hopeful, but at least I know I don't have to want for something I don't want. Of course I don't love the prospect of spending my life as a single person, but I'd rather share my life with someone I'm excited about every single day – even in their weak moments – than with just any old warm body who looks good on paper. 

The blasé date helped me realize you can't force the rich, exciting, deep relationship to happen, but it sure feels fortunate and magical when you do stumble into one.

The Familiarity of Grief

Time
Odd considering I'm late most of the time to anything, I am a keen observer of time. Okay, so maybe it's in a different sense. Anniversaries tend to stick in my memory. Recently I noticed I may have a knack for knowing any given toddler from church's age in months. I'm interested in the passage of time and how it seems to change in spite of our measurements of its passing.

Sometimes days seem to come and go in warp speed, and we drink them in with insatiable thirst. Other times, the hours, minutes, seconds seem to trudge a saunter as we hunger for sleep to take us until the next painstakingly slow day begins. I've been having the latter kind of days, just sort of waiting to feel good.

Recently, I was telling someone about my Europe trip from last May and I realized it was almost a year ago. The memory felt so distant and foreign that I was convinced for a second that it didn't even happen. I remember thinking, huh, I've been to Rome, and then thinking, that was an unbelievably long, painful year I could stand to forget.

That Old Familiar Feeling
When it really hit me that this relationship was over, I was scared, because I've known this pain so I know that the only way out is through. Last week I found myself wondering why I felt the same heavy sadness from a much shorter relationship than the longer one whose grief swallowed an entire year of my life – and it hit me, that's it: I'm grieving! (Cue the Simon and Garfunkel...) Somehow it hadn't occurred to me that, yet again and so quickly, I was experiencing a loss and mourning a possibility. The moment I recognized it as grief, I was oddly relieved. As if it's any bit disarmed by my seeing it.

Sadness hits me in the strangest moments. As part of an important revelation I've stopped avoiding it, but started letting it roll over me.

I went to Ikea last night to scheme and daydream about my new home, but it didn't occur to me until I exited the freeway that I went there with Coffee Shop Guy on a date a la 500 Days of Summer (unbelievable irony here on so many levels). Never thought the sight of sectional couches could make me nauseous and weepy, but oh they did... The moment I hit the display floor my stomach felt tight and the entire time I held back tears. We'd also picked out his new couches at a different scandinavian store just days into our then adorable sweeping romance.

In a strange moment of what felt like taunting and cruel serendipity, a little boy came running up alone and stood sobbing in the marketplace, having lost his mom and hurt his hand. It took all the weary strength I have in me not to lose it looking at his crocodile tears and subconsciously thinking, yes, losing someone, being hurt, and feeling alone is incredibly scary.

Grief is Unique and Common
While the longing to seek solace in someone I inherently cannot was familiar, this time different things hang me up than those I tripped over last year. Not more, not less, just different. Grief is grief, yet each instance of it is completely unique; each pushing through incredibly necessary. And once you know it's what's happening to you, that recognition can allow you to give yourself a little more grace for feeling like a mess.

I would dare to say grief is the worst part of human existence. It's a suffering you can't do anything to remedy, rather simply endure. It's impossible to articulate, yet it haunts you. It sneaks up and pounces when you're unsuspecting or busy. It tells you lies and then smacks you with the truth. It turns your reality on its head, forcing you into a new reality you don't want to be a part of. Maybe, if you've known it before, you'll know it when it comes around, but maybe not. If you haven't known it yourself, have grace for others and don't rush them through it. Each step forward – even the two back – is important to moving through a mourning. I revel the thought of the impact it could have if we all learned to have more grace, understanding, and compassion for the pain of life and its wake.

The only way to not be swallowed by it is to notice it is washing over you and roll with the waves.

Unraveled

**Disclaimer: This piece was written pre-deconstruction of religious beliefs and faith system. Many of these beliefs inform the sentiments of the writing and are not in alignment with my values. As this is a part of my journey and an extensive blog over years, I have chosen not to remove a majority of my posts written on faith. Please as a reader, take this into consideration and take what works for you, leave what does not. I also apologize for any harm my words from this past perspective may cause to any readers.**

Somehow it happened. I've always been pretty sure of myself but then I unraveled. I've spent more days in the last year (plus) wishing I didn't feel the way I did, than being okay with how I feel. So many days have been sad days or lonely days, hard days. I've wondered a time or two if this is me now: a sort of cynical, "realistic" person who buries herself in television and struggles to get out of bed nearly every day.

Questions I didn't know I had have come to the surface. The basis of everything about life is up in the air. I've begun questioning why I believe certain things that I just always have. I'm longing to experience God tangibly as I have so much of my life, and yet I feel like I'm wandering a desert in circles. Explaining this to just about anyone has been impossible, I never quite feel like I've done it justice just how uncomfortable I feel with myself and the questions. I'm stuck between feeling completely apathetic and yet not being able to live life without a deeper meaning that makes sense.

I took a break from attending church for a few weeks, then last week I went back. No certain reason other than Easter seemed like as good a time as any to break a church fast (it happened to coincide with lent, oddly). I realized I'd really missed my pastor. He's an interesting and insightful speaker, and tends to be realistic and honest. That's what kept me at the same church for so long, I liked that the pastor wasn't acting holier than others, but self-deprecating. His message on Easter was the exact one I needed, honest in that sometimes it feels like we're still losing. I've been in a long season that feels like losing, and it's so easy for anyone to look at it and say it will turn around or that God loves me, but those things don't change the reality; those things haven't eased the pain, they haven't pulled me out of bed in the morning.

Thankfully I have had my wits about me enough to know that if I don't show up things will only get worse.

Easter was a special occasion but I decided to show up to church again today. I sat in the back because I was late, which is usually a death-sentence to my concentration. Naturally I was in and out of the sermon versus my thoughts. A few times something would hit me and I felt on the edge of tears. Then came the singing. It wasn't anything particular in the songs, I just decided totalk to God as I often do during worship and sat down. I thought about all the questions, the doubt, the loneliness, the distance, the pain. Tears started creeping down my face seemingly out of nowhere.

I feel so out of place and like I'm in pieces, but I don't even understand it – yet somehow it was important that I sit in the back row at church and let slow tears evolve into an ugly cry. I needed to show up, just for that. There aren't any easy answers, there's no quick solution, there's no cure, but there's space for ugly crying in the back and hoping that hope returns and that things make sense again. Somehow, someday.

Shifting the Lens

**Disclaimer: This piece was written pre-deconstruction of religious beliefs and faith system. Many of these beliefs inform the sentiments of the writing and are not in alignment with my values. As this is a part of my journey and an extensive blog over years, I have chosen not to remove a majority of my posts written on faith. Please as a reader, take this into consideration and take what works for you, leave what does not. I also apologize for any harm my words from this past perspective may cause to any readers.** 

"I think the Kingdom is more about poetry and life than it is definitions and boundaries." – Sarah Bessey, Out of Sorts

I've turned into so much more of a hippie than I ever could've imagined. I'd always sort of thought of myself as a free spirit, I don't brush my hair very often, and I've never tried pot because I don't need a substance to make my mind go to weird places. But on a fundamental level, I recognize a lot of beliefs I hold now that I used to judge others for having.

I'm always fascinated by the ways we evolve and change. And I would go so far as to say if we're unwilling to examine why we believe what we do, and possibly even abandon some perspectives for new ones, we're missing out on life to the fullest. We are learning beings. We aren't meant to be stagnant. I know a big part of why I've felt such a struggle for a long time is that I've felt stagnant. I haven't known how to change it, how to push myself forward.

My faith is the lens through which I view the world, and it has adapted vastly over the years. It has become something I didn't think it would, but I'm so much more comfortable with it being what it is, than what it was. Growing up I had pretty defined ideas about right and wrong, good and bad, left and right. As I began to encounter other schools of thought, other perspectives, I found things that made more sense than my previous doctrine. And ideas that fit with my experiences of God; happenings over years and years that I can't do justice to explain. Over time, I've come to settle firmly on the belief that God is love. That is the primary thing anyone should ever know about Him, and the thing that when nothing else makes sense, that still does.

So when lately I've been struggling to make sense out of the lens through which I view the world, one of the few things that gives me peace is knowing that I've transformed to arrive here. I sorted through so much unknown and I've sorted through so much pain before, I'm likely on course to discovering more depth, more answers, more freedom, and, Lord willing, more love.

Rollercoaster vs. Intention

In the great yonder that is adulthood, it's always kind of been my thing to live my life with intention. I've always sort of known what I wanted to go after, or what I wanted to do and what I didn't. I've had this sense of who I am, and who I'm not. Up until the year from hell. Since I've felt like I'm away from myself; like I'm waiting to wake from a weirdly mediocre dream. I've just been living my life.

It occurred to me recently that after I lived in Paris and traveled through Vietnam, I was convinced I was going to change the world. That was six years ago now, and all I've done is live my life. I haven't done anything all that grand. And after the bad year and its residue trickling into this year in a way I didn't expect, I don't feel like I'm living with much intention.

I've been stuck on a crazy rollercoaster and there have been some things that have stood out along the twists and turns and sudden drops. A listening ear is a powerful healing tool. Showing up is key. When you feel broken into all sorts of weird pieces with sharp edges, the very thing you need around you is someone who can handle that. Being that someone to another takes intentionality.

For several years, my best friend lived two states away – a six to eight hour drive. We talked on the phone for an hour or two every week, and probably texted an obnoxious amount. She moved back to the cities two years ago now, and since we have seen each other nearly every week. For a while, it was Thursday nights. No matter what other thing I had, Thursdays were off limits. I think that consistency has saved my life. The intentionality we both put into our friendship makes it possible and meaningful. The amount of time we've logged filled with laughter, tears, and food is invaluable. She's my best friend because I can count on her and she uses intentionality in the way she does relationship.

Not long ago, I realized I don't have so many of those consistent relationships. I have flippantly flitted around and made a lot of weak friendships on fun but not a lot of effort. That's not to say the people aren't worthwhile, but the depth isn't if it detracts from having more relationships that are of greater depth.

Finally I find myself at the end of the current rollercoaster, a dating relationship that looked like a fun easy coaster at the beginning and turned out to be a high-speed nonstop wooden corkscrew. As it pulls to a stop, I'm of course nauseous and disoriented. There are the people who are there to help you off, hold a bag while you barf, and put an arm around you to help you stumble away.

I'm really tired of being the mess. It's been a while since I've felt like as big of one as I've been for over a year now. Whenever things have been good for anything that classifies as a stretch, I'm hesitant to admit it to anyone who asks, for fear of crying wolf and being a sad hermit mere moments later. I look at the ones who've been there for me, and I want to be them – not for the lack of my pain, but because I admire them. I want to be the one living with intentionality again, not the mess that needs someone to just listen for an hour. I want to be the one that sacrifices bedtime because her friend needs someone to go to a concert with instead of being alone. I want to be the one who listens and says I'm sorry.

It can be easier to live without being intentional. Flutter around on whatever wind may carry you. But then you're not the master of the direction your life is headed. There's so much of life that's out of our control, such as whether someone loves us back, but there's just as much that is a choice, such as loving without expectation of return. I ran myself dry giving away all my love in the wrong places, but when I get filled back up...I hope I've learned enough to use it well.

The Thing About Enduring

The song's words hit me, the beat matching the pace of my feet, and I felt something starting to crawl up out of me – don't breakdown at the gym.

A treadmill run is different than a run on pavement, concrete, and dirt. I listen to music on a treadmill so I don't have to hear the repetitive thud of my feet with each labored step, let alone the grunts of the guys who are trying too hard in the nearby weight-lifting area. I have a playlist of trusty songs that help set the mood. Tunes or not, I use running as a time to think through things in my life. I focus in on something and I "run it out", or run toward it. I know it could sound silly, but for some reason when my body is in that intense of motion and I'm pushing that hard, it's the perfect time to think through the tough things and remind myself I can survive; remind myself I am enough.

That run, that day, that one familiar song hit me in just the right way.

I'll give you one more chance
To say we can change or part ways
And you take what you need
And you don't need me
...
And you know you don't need me
And if I recover
Will you be my comfort
Or it can be over
Or we can just leave it here

It nearly knocked the wind out of me and my eyes welled up. I fought it. I pushed and breathed through it. And then I thought about how a friend told me the other day she was proud of me for enduring. Although I questioned if it were true, I also immediately thought she hit it right on the mark. I have endured things I didn't know I could, and I am enduring right now. Endurance isn't easy or pretty, but it takes strength, patience, and drive.

To endure means to continue, last or survive; to suffer without yielding, to suffer with patience.

I thought about how I got where I did with running, I had to push past a lot of resistance in myself. In moments like that one, and usually a moment in every run, there's a choice. It's an incredibly fine line, but it's still a choice: push on in spite of a block, physical or mental – or slow down, even stop. Usually if you can push, there's this feeling like you're weightless, your breaths are effortless, and your body is a machine. I lovingly call it the zone. I hope for a stretch of it in every run.

Sometimes a song will put me in the zone and that day that song did. I realized that enduring through something in life is the same. Like running, if you don't press on through a difficulty, you don't get to the good stuff. You have to endure to get to the place where you are floating and breathing easy and moving forward.

The summer before last, an injury caused me to take several months off from running. When I came back to it, it was so difficult I was sure all that I'd put in over the span of about three years was lost. I'd lost my breath, and when that was working my muscles weren't, and if it wasn't one of those it was my motivation. It became so much work it wasn't enjoyable and I could not get to the place that made it all worth while. My body was no longer a machine. However, over only a few weeks recently, pushing through the discomfort and the disappointment has brought me back to the place where I can do it and I love it.

And that's the thing about enduring, it takes an intentional push to get through to a better place.

Feeling Pulled Apart

I want to cry.

I sit here and that's what I want, but it can't be turned on even though I feel like a spigot with the supply right there. I was out with a friend this evening, filling her in on my mess and right when I even got to the point of starting to cry, the waitress walked up. Impeccable timing.

Crying actually makes you feel better. It's a part of our biology (which is fascinating), it releases endorphins. But I haven't been much of a crier in recent months. So much so that when I'm really tired, I'll feel on the verge of tears, but for no known reason. Generally I cry easily about things that are moving, but I think the year of pain shifted something in me. I haven't been able to cry much about this breakup even though I feel it, heavily. A week or two ago, I watched an incredibly sad movie just to get some out of my system. I of course palate cleansed with Parks and Rec after...because it's not that I like feeling sad, but I feel it and like it's big and unavoidable. I saw another friend tonight and she asked what's giving me life right now — running. That's about what I feel like is going right. And Mondays watching The Bachelor with my best friend and her husband who brings us dinner [like a champ!]

I guess I'd say I feel sort of pulled apart. I can't figure out why that is a fitting way to describe my mental-emotional state right now, but it is. I don't feel right, even my appetite is hardly there. I can't get my mind off of it, wake up thinking about it. See I was in an okay place when this new relationship happened, and it felt as if it was going well, something was finally going well...and then it wasn't. It fell almost as quickly as it rose to its high heights. And now I can't help but see I'm in a limbo that reflects the way my previous relationship dragged on after it was "over". So there's a tension in me: lean into potential familiar pain in hopes of holding onto something good; persevere, or turn away and try to wade back to hope that something else good is out there. Classically: fight or flight.

In spite of the fear that's stirring around in me at the familiarity of relational purgatory, I've been fighting. I want to show up and I want to love well. The weight of it all sits on my chest. But I think until it's really truly done, I just can't cry.

Choosing Compassion Over Spite

Square peg, round hole; square peg, round hole.

This phrase was bouncing in my head a few weeks ago because I figured maybe wishful thinking had disguised itself as hope again. Hope is a tricky bugger. See, I've been learning this thing about my gut and how I should listen to it, it's where I felt hope. I can't really explain it better than that, or in a way that's more relatable to a non-intuitive person. My gut is my compass. Where I get in trouble is when logic gets involved...

It bothers me at a deep level when someone assumes because I'm whatever personality type, I don't know how to engage logic. To the contrary in fact, logic has been known to save the day! It helps diffuse my emotions about a situation, or healthily defer them altogether. But I struggle in that there are places where logic just doesn't cut it. There are times when, not emotions, but choice takes the wheel. Some things just don't make any sense, but we do them. We could blame them on faulty emotional moments, or we could recognize that they're human moments. They're not logical, but they're not fully to be blamed on intuition either. Like love.

As I struggle through being hurt by someone, the logical side of me strives to make sense out of why that hurt is so easily overlooked. It's something I've never been able to make sense out of, because as an adult I see that my response is to do something hurtful in return; act out of spite. I had never fully realized my capability for spite until the last few weeks. I'd never been able to name it: when I get hurt, I want to hurt in return. That's something I've known for a long time, but I had never put the name to it and found a reason to disarm myself. Once I was able to name it as spitefulness, it's been much easier to spot it coming into play and let go of it. It's been easier to make a choice of my actions.

Just tonight I realized something that's incredibly important to my worldview: I have a strong, near-insatiable desire to understand where someone's coming from. When I'm hurt by someone I love who claims to love me, the questions begin to flow. They're echoing and deafening: why? Now, admittedly there's some part of me, especially aspiring to practice therapy someday, that will have to learn to let go of even the "why" to someone's actions or speech. At the same time, the altruistic search for possibilities as to why someone would, say, run a red light, helps steer my heart toward compassion as opposed to anger. Maybe they're going to the hospital. Maybe they're late to a job interview after months of unemployment. Logic saves the day when it's able to show me the way to compassion.

I pondered tonight for a second, among days of intermittent seconds of pondering, why love wouldn't work. You could throw all the love and good patience you have at someone, and it might not work. Every single factor could be in the right position, and still, it may fail. I struggle to make sense of it... However, if for a second of those seconds of wondering I can find compassion within me, it proves me right. If I can find my way to making sense out of the rejection of love laid down, I can prove it's merit still stands. See, compassion would have me understand that some wounds need to be healed and some perceptions addressed before love will be welcomed back in. Some adaptations of love in the past may have been damaging, skewing the perceptions and values of it for the future.

However, the lens does not change the reality that is seen through it — save for by perspective.

This is a place my intuition and my logic can coexist. It's a place of compassion for the past that others have known (same as I have) and how it shapes and even warps their perceptions of the very reality before them. Sometimes, sadly, the reality they see cannot be altered or corrected, or highlighted. Quite simply sometimes those differences can only be held; acknowledged in the heart, with honor for the pain of another. And still can love be dared to be chosen, because it is not altered or weakened by the lens, but a strong and beautiful statement. It is still a willful choice of acceptance and admiration. Another place intuition and logic coexist.

Before I Knew

Sometimes I wish I could pull a Dorothy: click my heels together and go back to a simpler time. I'd go back years ago, to when I'd never had a relationship before and didn't really know what it was like; back to when my faith rose up to life's challenges; back to a time when my feelings were big but it was sort of expected.

Nearly eight years ago was one of the toughest times of my life. I felt such deep pain, I thought if I weren't alive that would be the only thing to relieve it — thankfully time would, though I didn't know. This past year I went through another such pain, though romantic not platonic. As I trudged through, day by day, I quietly thought the same thing but dared not to tell anyone for fear of being committed.

When I was younger and went through hard things, it was different. The emotions that came with everything at 19 years old were more acceptable. Sure, now that I'm an adult I know how to manage my emotions better, but that doesn't mean heavy pain gets any easier. On the contrary, as an adult there's a job you go to so you can pay the bills that don't wait for time to pass for you to heal. As an adult, you have to squeeze your feeling into the free space in between it all.

I began this year thinking it would be "my year", whatever that even means. And here I find myself tired. Nearly daily battling anxiety. Feeling the slow creep of apathy because nothing really feels good. Nothing's really going well. It all feels...hard.

I worked toward a financial goal last year that has me the most independent I've ever been. So it's ironic that as I finally feel like I'm settling into adulthood, I long for that time before, when things were so easy. When I first moved to the city, all the days spent biking around and goofing around. I spent my days pining after guys who worked at coffee shops, yearning for a boyfriend, for love. I had no idea how much love would hurt me; not a clue in the world how much relationships would teach me about pain. I expected love to build me up, not weaken me. I didn't know how hard it would be to walk away. I didn't know what it would be like to try not to loose it at your desk. I always thought love would be important, I just didn't know it would be because there's so much risk.

When you break a bone, even long after it heals, a cold front can bring about aches. Right now, life feels like a lot of the aches. I find myself nostalgic for the simpler time, before I had the scars I do, before I was tired.

Dorothy clicks her little heels together, repeating, "There's no place like home, there's no place like..." and you watch with a swell of hope. And I guess that's what I want, to be able to find my way back to a place of hope.

Questions & Whims

I have a lot of questions and a lot of uncertainty. That's oddly something I've never had too much trouble with in my life, certainty, or the lack of it rather. Open-ended questions don't bother me. Not having a set plan is more my M.O. than adhering to an outline. So I'm living with the questions, giving them space to wander around in me. I'm letting myself become an experiment of sorts, but in the most effortless way, waiting for things to rise out of my subconscious throughout the day and week.

I like to discuss theories and ideas with people, I like to write about them, but to delve into personal thought occurs more when it possesses me. The many things loose in my mind percolate and seek exit or attention whenever they please. Whims aren't good travel guides. No, that's not true at all, I take it back; they're excellent travel guides, but terrible professors and life coaches. Over the years I've learned to weigh the whims and fancies, determining which ones will pass and which ones will have some pull. Some of the questions that are coming up have slowly risen in me over time. It's as if they've been growing, a part of me, almost unknown, but recent events have knocked them loose.

I've asked a lot of questions in my life that as I explored them, I began to find there were never answers to be found. I've come to accept this as a part of life. And sometimes a question's answer is useless as it begs to send us to the past to correct some thing, or take the other path at the fork, and we know that we cannot.

A mere week or two ago, as I pondered the sudden discontentment I had with things not being what I expected, I felt as if I am at a precipice. It was a strange premonition that I really had no reason or cause to believe, other than maybe an odd bit of hope amid disappointment. This thought that I might be about to head in a direction that was unprecedented, but not an omen by any means; an impression of good. The logical side of me wants to blame the beautiful spring day it was as I walked the park by the river and the sky exuded the color blue as if to visually define it. That side of me wants to say it was my heart fighting to have hope instead of more disappointment.

But the side of me that houses all the orphaned questions believes maybe it was truth. Maybe to get to something new and different and good, I have to get comfortable with the questions, the skepticism, the space. It feels like something of a risk, but I also feel like I'm gathering the breath of courage, as before something big - like a leap.

The Hard Lesson of Vulnerability

I thought I had this whole vulnerability thing down pat. But my heart hurts right now. I keep learning a hard lesson about this, but the lesson is only meant to reiterate that it will be hard; it will be painful.

Vulnerability never seems to get easier. In fact, it feels to me like it's getting harder. I'm fighting getting jaded. I'm fighting myself, trying to hold back the anger that comes out when I'm hurt because that's how sensitive me once learned people will actually listen. If you hurt, more often than not, that's unimportant to he who caused it. Remorse is hard to come by anymore. Vulnerability is supposed to beget vulnerability. It really doesn't. And you can't know until you try, and with every try the will to try depletes.

There's a secondary lesson learned from the fight of vulnerability, and that's compassion. I was brought to learn compassion by falling on my face in vulnerability, time and time again. A bruised and scarred heart recognizes the same when it sees it, and there's a knowing between the two.

So it is I fight and I struggle to remain vulnerable, to be honest, and to be true to myself, in spite of the pain it's caused me my whole life. I repeatedly tell myself that's it's a strength, but it sure as hell feels a lot more like a weakness; like stepping up to a fight without armor. I tire of it. I begin to think to myself, maybe I'll just pass next time. Maybe I'll decide no one is deserving of or trustworthy for my truth, my story. Maybe I'll give up on blazing a trail with honesty, and wait for someone to light a path to me.

But even as I think it, I doubt it. I can't bring myself to believe that the heart can survive without being known. That's the very root of the rejection epidemic: there's risk and the risk is painful. So I have to bring myself back to believing the risk is worth the chance, the possibility that it is in fact a strength and one that someone needs. Likely that will land me used up and tossed aside, as it seems to have a track record of doing. But surely someone needs it; surely another heart needs its story to be held, its tears to be regarded.

So I must do my best to bind up my wound, even while it's still aching, then revisit the worthiness of the cause.

When Words Fail Me

Lately I feel like I've lost my words - okay, try the last several months. I haven't written much, which I'm sure that doesn't help. I have been spending a lot of time alone, a lot of time not being creative, haven't interacted with a team toward a common goal. I'm not in a small group. The holidays meant I didn't see much of my friends... Somehow, a culmination of these and things I'm probably not even aware of seems to have robbed me of clarity I felt I once had. I have been putting my foot in my mouth, I have been accidentally offending people. I've been impressing upon others that I'm something I know I'm not.

When it comes to communication, I'd say I'm big on adapting the message to the audience. It's somewhat in our nature in fact, we use different dialects with different people (one of those interpersonal communication things that fascinates me). Sometimes I'm not great at it. Sometimes I think I've found a brilliant way to say something, that I've curated the perfect words for what I want to communicate - and yet I fail. Miserably.

And I've felt off my game. Here and there I've had a handful of conversations that were downright frustrating. It's like I'm losing my edge. And the funny thing about it is, the same conundrum arises as I'm writing about it: there seems no possible resolve.

When I started writing this, this is where I got stuck for a few days. I couldn't figure it out; how will I wrap this up? Without a good wrap-up, there's no point in writing if only to tell people I have a human struggle. That's the point of this blog, I have a human struggle and a unique perspective on what to do with it.

Well, the thing I realized is that it's about me. I'm the hold-up. If I'm feeling stubborn and prideful, I think everyone else just isn't getting it. And you know, maybe they aren't but, going back to the basics of communication, it's on me to adapt. Often, I am adaptable and I'll describe myself as such, but I fail at it too. When I get frustrated in communication, it's because I'm getting lazy or prideful. If I won't change my message to try and make it clearer, try to get through and simultaneously diffuse, then I can't expect resolve. If I won't dig into myself and exercise patience and compassion, I won't see a resolution.

What I've been questioning for both myself and others is: what is the point of conflict and dialogue? It seems all too often, the goal isn't mutual understanding but rather, self-assertion. When I see it, I try to remind others to choose compassion and patience and understanding, but in reality I need to start with myself. I need to take inventory of places where I lack compassion, patience, understanding, and mercy, then I need to enact those things there. I think of my least favorite verse in the Bible, it's a line about commenting on a speck of sawdust in someone else's eye, but you have a log in your own. It's the hardest way to seek change, but you have to practice what you preach.

So as I practice adapting my communication and enacting patience, maybe my patience and my understanding will grow. There are sure to be trials and errors, but it seems a worthwhile cause.

The Bends in the Road

Usually I'm prone to find a silver lining, the bright edge of a dark cloud, however last year gave me a run for my money. By October I was downright aching-hungry for the silverlining to all this mess that was wandering about my life.

I even got to have the Europe trip of a lifetime (okay well knock off a few bucket list items at least) halfway through 2016, yet I forget because the Dark, Dark place overshadowed it. And no, there didn't seem to be a glisten of hope in sight. It felt like if anything everything seemed to compound. So I'd gotten to a point of apathy, which is a bit of understanding that I don't have control; I can put in my best effort, I can kick ass at my job or pay off a bunch of debt and save up a bunch of money, I can put loads of energy into a relationship...and it is no semblance of control. You might think you're go-with-the-flow until everything feels like it sucks, when - all of a sudden - you realize you're just as much of a control addict as the next guy... The point being, it built up like a shitty sediment, and the vicious cycle of apathy and realizing you have no control doesn't help.

But there's a secret to the place where everything sucks -- some people told me in regards to the breakup early on, when it might as well have been gibberish which I only now know to be true:

It's terrible until one day when it's not anymore. 

I went to the doctor yet again this week and finally got answers - let alone confirmation I'm not just a hypochonriac-quack. See, I'd spent nearly the entire stint of unemployment mysteriously ailed by something. The mystery finally being solved (among other things) got me thinking: Fortunate misfortune, as my life tends to like to bring about, being without any substantial income or unemployment benefits has allowed me to get on state healthcare. Premiums and deductibles are extremely minimal. So with the possibility I'll need surgery to correct the not-so-mysterious-after-all illness, it's a great time to be unemployed and a little broke. 

Not long after I was laid off, I took the job hunt to a not-so-local but favorite coffee shop. It became the daily go-to haunt when I noticed a really, really handsome guy who also frequented made eye contact and threw me a smile...which also became a daily, multiple-times-a-day occurence. With a still-healing heart and a jaded attitude, I admired him from afar, doubting that my desire to know him would ever be quenched. People have different stories of how they get together, but in my book this one goes: I looked at him and smiled until he couldn't take it anymore and had to talk to me. If it weren't for an employment vacancy formerly believed to be poorly-timed, I likely would not have stared this wonderful man into being my boyfriend. He's more than I could've imagined, let alone being equally as vexed by me as I am by him.

Now, I will not go so far as to say these are the "whys" of losing a job I loved with colleagues that felt like family and work that felt important - I won't say that, but I will say when there's a bend in the path, we don't always know that where it might lead us could turn out to be more splendid than the path had appeared. The seemingly straight and narrow with its false sense of security pales to the beauty in the adventure of a winding, curving, rising and falling road; far more rich and worthwhile. Maybe such a curve will take you to a place you find deep healing, right into the very tissues that felt strangely and subtly off the way my tonsils have all this time. Parts of me needed the bend, couldn't be somewhere better without it.