A Heart

I don't think anyone reads my blog anymore (at least not this one) and so I feel a sense of liberty in writing straight from the soul. There is something oddly purging about letting the pieces of me that have been struggling to form semblance ink to something tangible across the white noise of the interworld. There is a part of me that is still hesitant to write this, because there is something strange about scattering pieces of my soul like confetti into the inter-abyss- but the taunt of freedom is too alluring and I can only hope that if anyone reads this they will do so with forgiveness and a gentle sense of humor. Blogs are the new 'message in a bottle'. I'm writing from the heart and tossing it into the ocean. The only person I expect to find this is a pirate....or mermaid (preferably a merman mind you, dripping and wet with long-ish hair and a glowing six pack...)

So basically this year I have had a lot of firsts. I have used atrophied muscles in my heart:

Opened

Trusted

Loved

Grieved

Discovered

Believed.

Believed. This is a big one for me. I never believed in using my heart the way I've used it this year.

Let me explain something about my heart. My whole life I have been trying to protect it. Ever since I came home from school crying to my mom about the kid I didn't know who got pushed down on the playground I knew I had a different heart. We all have beautiful hearts, and they are capable of different and unique things. I have been cursed (blessed) with A tender heart. A big heart. The kind of heart that gets hurt by just watching the cruelly labeled geek in class get spit-wadded by the school bully. Not just hurt, but swallowing my tears and snot as I cried for them HURT. I used to hurry up to finish my schoolwork in sixth grade so I could go and tutor the resource kids. This is not the fastest way to make friends in sixth grade, and I had a few friends who were very special to me that understood my heart...and I understood theirs.

But I grew up. And in the process of bad hair cuts and teenage growing pains I discovered that I didn't want to walk around FEELING my heart. I wanted to protect it. And thus began the process of slowly piling brick after brick around my heart. It wasn't until this year, through some painful discoveries, that I realized this heart of mine is MEANT to feel. I am meant to love so completely that I feel empathy and compassion for everyone. I am meant to emulate Christ as closely as I can so that I can understand even the teeniest portion of what He understands. I am MEANT to use my heart in service of my God. I am supposed to open my heart, and even though it causes me agony it also blesses me with a sense of serenity and peace I haven't known since I was a kid.

I am meant to love.

I am meant to hold. To comfort. To console. To do my part and let go.

I am meant to TRUST my heart in the Lord's hands. If my heart is in His hands, it will be taken care of. He knows my heart better than anyone, and he knows what I need to feel and when I need relief. He also knows HOW to relieve me.

I have never felt God closer in my life then just these past few weeks, but especially days. I have felt pushed down (this has been a rough semester for me as far as semesters go), but instead of brushing myself off and getting back up (which is what I normally do) I have taken His hand. I am taking His hand and trusting His plan for me. His plan for my big heart.

The amazing thing about this is that because the Lord knows me, and knows how to take care of me...I feel WONDERFUL. If I was a fighter in the ring, I'd be ready to jump back in. I've never felt more free, because NO MATTER what happens...I am trusting the Lord.

I believe in love. So cliched...so cheesy...but so true.

Love has the power to CHANGE people in ways that are...for lack of more inventive word...magical. Love can soften. Love can move. Love can beckon. Love can turn back time and change what otherwise cannot be undone. Love can forgive. Love is patient. Love trusts. Love can bend the hardest knee and bring tears to the driest eye. Love can let go...but Love can hold on. Love can surround us and Love can leave us...but ONLY if we let it.

I choose to trust my heart. But not trust it to myself...or anyone other person...trust it to the Lord.

I choose to Love. Openly and Freely. Until I wear Love as comfortably as I wear my skin.

control

I like to get what I want-- almost as much as I like fighting to get what I want. I'm not afraid to dive head first into battle, war paint on as I make my way through life. Recently I have come to realize that in my efforts to fight for what I want I have crossed a collapsing boundary and found my hands dipped in the slippery grit of control. I struggle with the paradox of not giving up, of fighting for what I want, and trying to control the outcome...control my entire life. In trying to control every outcome I have on accident given up my weapons to fight a fair fight and have instead exchanged them for the sneaky devices of a spy. I don't want to be a spy, I want to be a warrior. I can be extremely stubborn. I wont give up. But how do I find the balance of letting go...of practicing faith...and still fighting for what I want? I need to give up control, but all the same I need to keep my war paint. I can't control how my life will turn out, but I can fight for the things I want...right?

Gah. Its hard for me to live in the gray of this.

so this is

so this is life on the sun. I feel a constant glow, a consuming energy as I try to take it all in. no more gravity. just fire and brightness and light. so far...i love life on the sun.

Silence

I am more powerful than you, because I can listen. I know the cleverness of sound because I am careful to be still enough to understand it. Words can move, attack, destroy, seduce, impact, belittle, hurt, resolve, love, tangle. I can deduce. I can watch. I can deaden or make alive. If you throw words at me, I can soften them and butter them up. I can chew your words until they dissolve or I can hang them up so they are amplified.

Silence.

I am silence.

Sometimes there is too much of me. But most of the time, there is not enough.

A few gems

Lately I have been reading Atlas Shrugged by the very talented and insightful Ayn Rand. When I have finished the novel (which is well over one thousand pages) I will post a little more. But for now, a few gems I have savored:

"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it."

"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."

"A man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions.... He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer--because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement."

"What greater wealth is there than to own your life and to spend it on growing? Every living thing must grow. It can't stand still. It must grow or perish."

"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil"

"I take no pride in hopeless longing; I wouldn't hold a stillborn aspiration. I'd want to have it, to make it, to live it."

"Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver."

"If you don't know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn."

And many, many more. The End. For now.

one on one hundred lonely

clock on my phone blinks 11:17, I tuck it away and fold my hands
fold them carefully, like I might fold a fancy dinner napkin
the longer it takes to fold my hands, the longer I can avoid looking at
Him.
I watch a speck of dust sigh in and out, all around the room
the room.
Its so full. Full of people. They have faces, but to me they are all one shade
Gray.
My heart catches in my throat when I see a flash of color. It dances in the gray. Teasing. Luring.
Blue.
Your eyes.
I see them for an instant that is split into a thousand splinters and then shatters.
Everything falls away because for a shattered second I have your eyes. And they have me. So completely we have each other.
My hands drop to my sides. They tingle.
And then You're gone.
And He is there.
His gray eyes watch me with authentic earnest that only rolls off my skin like marbles, heavy with disinterest.

Hundreds of bodies around me.
One on One across from me.
One on One's all around me.

I go back to folding my hands. Carefully, articulately I label each finger, each inch of flesh in my mind something to watch other than the carnival around me.

The last label I reserve for my pinkie finger, as I tuck it under all the rest: Lonely.

you know the feeling...

you know the feeling.
can't breathe because it hurts too much.
can't think because whenever you do you think about...
can't move because if you do you will move in only one direction. its like gravity.
always pulling you toward...
in so much pain.
didn't know my soul could crave something so strongly.

you are my one. you are my only. and for allergy related reasons I can never have you again

Sour Patch Kids.

My all time favorite relationship. You got me through some rough semesters.

this break will sting.