Stitch Me Up

I got what I need,
there's no reason for me to bleed,
so can you stitch me up please?
I'm tired of falling apart
- tired of feeling this aching heart
if only
there was a way
to rewind
and erase it all from my mind
so it'd stop replaying
and stop relaying
- bringing it back
and throwing me off track
when trying to move forward
without you
is enough
with our memories
thick about me
as the air I breathe
so much time spent wondering
only in reprieve
when you'll bid me
a farewell I can believe.

That Once Brewed Quietly

When you get to breathing easy and laughing again, life throws you another one...

It's been a difficult, strange year, and I can't help but think the me before all that's happened would've been more chipper and resilient, but at this point I'm just so tired. Tired of feeling second string, - or like having feelings is some horrendous burden to bear. I'd say "I'm sorry" for being a feeler, but I'm not and I don't know how to be any other way.

And I feel so far away from everyone. Another cyclical, seasonal thing I go through - in tandem, usually, with my spiritual deserts - whose repetition I can never seem to figure out. I find myself in that place with little hope that I'll ever stop having these seasons, knowing in part this round is due to re-entry to the single life. I don't have much hope for it to feel different, the only hope I do have is that God will grow something in me through it. That maybe somehow in being parched for the very thing I crave and need most, I will find that quenched in Him, even though it doesn't feel like it right now.

I naively felt as though I already knew my low seasons in life many years ago. I don't say naively because they weren't low, but because I believed probably out of self-preservation that more would not come; I'd hit the quota. Somehow in that I felt brave, to endure and be strong. However, this year has broken many of my constructs about what I can endure, and what I want, and even what I already have. It has near evaporated the hope that once brewed quietly, a slow-rolling boil.

So as I have finally picked myself up and dusted myself off, I am tired, and faint, and lonely, with only the hope that my Refuge will come to me, lift me from my weariness, and set things right. Even though the hope is weary. 

Slack: Never So Steady

**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 have books piling on the empty side of my full-sized bed. Most of them books about feelings stuff and relationships, one about overcoming, two journals, and several folded bulletins covered in sermon notes (the ones with an asterisk are things my pastor said that particularly struck me). And my bible, the small one that I bought to take with me on my six-month mission trip five years ago.

Five years ago this summer, I was on a mission trip having the time of my life, dodging cockroaches and motorbikes like a native, and feeling like God was in everything, great and small. I actually woke up early to read my bible in the morning - me! I was fearless and I was on fire. Eleven years ago this summer, I was on a mission trip in Appalachia when I "came to Jesus", as they say. A year ago this summer, I was nervously choking out the words "I love you" to a man.

Seasons roll over us recklessly like waves do in the ocean, complete disregard for you in their path. Here I am in the path as the waves roll over me. I don't really know what this season is, - maybe low tide? Instead of relishing in God's goodness to me, or seeing it all over the world, my heart is weary, and I feel like I see Him almost nowhere. It's strange because I haven't stopped believing what I do, but it just doesn't feel very impacting against the raging world, and the pain in my own heart and my own back yard. It feels like God is being quiet. And that doesn't make me much want to pick up the bible next to me in my bed.

Very in line with the metaphor, I have found that seasons like this in my life ebb and flow, although it feels one was never so steady as this. A thing happens with tides between the high and the low, the current has to slow to change directions (forgive me if I butchered it, I'm not sciency, I'm feely). This is a period called slack water, when it is calm and quiet. I can't say I'm in the calm and quiet of life, but certainly a calm and quiet of my faith. My hope is that this is something like the changing of the tides, this quietness.

A favorite author, speaker, thinker, teacher of mine, Graham Cooke talks about how we have seasons of manifestation and conversely, hiddenness. Times when we feel like we are running hand-in-hand with God and seeing His glory in the land of the living, and then there's times when we feel like we don't know where God went but He sure isn't with us. Cooke says that's when God is growing things in you and moving unbeknownst to you. That has been my little seed of hope that even though things feel completely stagnant, God is at work.

And surely He must be; surely the tides must soon turn. I guess that's one thing an ebb and flow ensures: one must always be followed by the other.

Crash

One weak, coaxed sentence,
two words
ones I
told you
to tell me
- wanted you to sell me,
but you lacked in presence
then pleaded your innocence
never pulling up
seemingly embracing
the crash and burn.

The Overshare of Vulnerability

I recently tearfully (and a little snottily) finished Donald Miller's book Scary Close. In it, he effortlessly chronicles his journey of coming to grips with the fact that he was often being fake and that it had an effect on his relationships, to sum it up in a less moving and insightful way than his pages do. Miller is a writer I greatly admire, in part for a reason he himself notes in that book: he's good at being vulnerable. The way he described it, I could relate. I won't claim to be as eloquent or talented a writer, but I get the vulnerability thing.

Sometimes I make people uncomfortable, - well, okay, I think often times - with my vulnerability. However I've noticed something that matters to me far more than the comfort of those it bothers, it helps the walls between the others of us come down. It's exactly what Miller's book is about, too. I cried through the entire last quarter of the book because he precisely hits the mark. We need vulnerability to have deep relationships, and we need it to get through the walls to have those deep relationships.

Sure, vulnerability is scary; it involves risk, but somehow we've built our social understanding of vulnerability to equate weakness. Another writer I'm learning to love is Brene Brown, a social worker and doctor of psychology who has long studied the interactions of people. She has written entire books on the power of vulnerability and owning your story. As I've been slowly reading her latest, Rising Strong, I'm also often crying or shouting a resounding "yes" of agreement to the proverbial heavens, hoping somehow wherever she is she'll know I needed this validation.

See, I'm naturally a pretty soft, squishy "feelings person" - as I like to say, - always have been. Growing up as a youngest child my siblings didn't get it, so I was often criticized and teased for being "overly sensitive." Maybe rightfully so, I'll never know, but either way their callousness helped thicken my skin a lot. Thank God, too, because people are mean; bosses are mean, middle-school girls are mean, ex-best friends are mean, customers at a coffee shop are mean! So over the years I learned to toughen up and not let it eat away at me, while at the core there's still that sensitive little girl who doesn't want to suffer at the carelessness of others.

Fast forward and, for most of my adult life, that has translated to being unapologetically me: openly sensitive and yet not a punching bag. I'll be honest, I'm still learning but much of that resulted in being a fiery defender of the underdog or raging against inconsiderate injustices (that would've been a mouthful of a band name). I'm passionate. And while I know I have to rein that in sometimes, I'm still not ashamed of it. I'm also not ashamed to be truthful. I place a high value on truth and honesty, partially because I've started to see through people and through the meanness - I don't mean that judgmentally. It seems everyone has a scared being inside them that they want to hide from the world. The sad thing about that is, it's usually the part of them with the most to offer. How can you be your best self if you don't even allow the world to see your true self? This is now what I get criticized for: being too open. Because I'm not afraid to share much, I obviously am sharing too much. This is of course usually decided by those who don't like risking an ounce in vulnerability their self.

I have been going through a shitstorm (sorry if that word bothers you, it's about the only word that seems sufficient) in the past few months - and guess why: I was vulnerable and it hurt, big time. There's no way to say it without sounding mushy or sappy, but I loved and it failed me. Without even fully realizing it, while holding back on admitting it - thinking that'd actually protect me - I put my heart all in and lost out.

I took some time and thought about it. It was a slow start, but I wasn't about to hide my pain from the world as if there were shame to loving deeply and with great hope. I had no idea how I could possibly maintain a semi-normal life and wade through the grief I felt. I also knew that there is power in vulnerability; power in stating that life is sometimes downright painful and ugly, and it can be hard to get out of bed, simply because you risked and lost, and the disappointment is a heavy load. That should be incredibly relate-able, but we shame vulnerability. Still, my goal was to be real, as it always has been.

I wanted to share my story, because I thought even though some may judge my honesty and openness, maybe even look down on me for it assuming a lack of self-control - I thought some people may need this. Some of us need to know we aren't the only person in the world who has had the days where it's difficult to get out of bed. You aren't the only one that's scared to try to love again, want to love again. You aren't the only one crying in the bathroom at work and avoiding eye-contact with passersby on return.

Turns out I was right, at least a few times. I had people thank me for being brave, because they felt shamed when they had pain and they felt alone because of it. I can't help but think how much we could change the game if we were just honest, not brutally so, but truthfully - if we were real with one another. What if we stopped being so concerned someone would think less of us because we're human and it hurts to be sometimes? Maybe through all of these gushing words over these weeks and months I have only helped a few people wipe clear the shame of their pain; maybe only a few people learned something about how to address someone in pain, but I think that's worth it.

My good friend said to me just recently, Vulnerability begets vulnerability. She's incredibly right. I've seen that when I am real about my struggles, others breathe easily around me, and in their exhales share their struggles in return. And when I encounter someone who is open to a fault, I feel more comfortable with them than all the perfect instagram friends I know.

So I won't apologize for being vulnerable, or "too open", if you want to call it that. I won't stop, either. Facing a fear could be viewed as reckless, or it could be touted as courageous, so I'm going to keep pushing to change the landscape, even if only around me by starting with my own open book.

Shapeshifter

I feel like what we were is morphing in memory, a shape shifter; sometimes something beautiful, sometimes something maddening. And my heart strings are woven through that object, slowly wearing down as it changes and moves and alters. Was it always this way? Maybe it was, and it was always fated to fray the strings and, eventually, inevitably disintegrate - though that part is yet to be proven. That is just my pessimistic prediction, as I emerge from the Dark, Dark Place, a little jaded.

Home

The thing is, I never wanted to be in love more than once. I'd never wanted to want to marry more than one person. I've always known that if I make that decision, it will be it. I went into it, not thinking it'd be it, but searching out if it could be. In all the textbook ways (and I mean, really trained not stereotypical, romanticized ways) it relationally had what it takes [to go the distance, as they say]. Neither of us are perfect, of course, - I've never heard of such a couple - but together it was good. I couldn't have imagined getting along with a guy I was dating so well (mostly because everyone says what hard work it is), but so it was. It didn't take long for being with him to feel comfortable and safe and warm, like home. So I struggle to let go of wanting to go home - to think about making home somewhere else.

Maybe it just takes time. It has, after all, healed me of my Dark, Dark Place and is healing me of my weakness and insecurities. Maybe time, too, will smooth over my longing for things to just return to comfort and ease.

In one of my favorite films, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, there's a clinic for ex-lovers to erase one another from memory. Only hangup is Joel grapples with the decision to remove Clementine while the process is taking place. Similarly, I'm not convinced I want time to heal me of missing "home". I grapple with feeling as though really, I can't imagine finding someone I feel that way with; have that connection with. And yet, several big things in my life would drastically change to be with him. So I am, within myself, at a stand still. A stalemate, if you will, of the head and the heart. I just want to be home, but I'm not sure it can be my home anymore. Saving grace is that the pain of having settled into it as such, as home, has decreased and is decreasing. Yet, the desire to go there remains.

If I'm honest, a part of me is confused: should you be able to want to make more than one person in life your person? You've certainly heard the saying, "The heart wants what it wants." Well, I wonder, if my heart ever wants anyone else again, could it even be true? So it must be, that lifelong commitment is not simply a matter of the heart, but a decision; to dive in together, for life, in love. But I fear if I love another, it won't make this love any less a part of my life, rather it will just be a different choice. I never wanted that, to go the opposite direction my heart was.

I've been reading Donald Miller's Scary Close, and in it he says:

To hear her voice and smell her hair and remember half the feeling of home is usually a person.

You know, in the end of the movie (spoiler alert), Clem & Joel meet again after they've mutually erased one another. They're drawn to each other again, and with the fear that history will simply repeat staring them in the face, they stare back and decidedly say, "Okay."

I quietly wonder, what will we say?