smiling when it hurts

Sometimes I want to run away. As I walked on stage tonight for my bow in Singin' in the Rain I felt the strong need to run. I didn't want to smile. I didn't want to sing. I didn't want to charm. I wanted to run. This has nothing to do with the wonderful experience of being in a show with my best friend and getting to know a whole new family, it has everything to do with the dissonance in my life.

Dissonance in music is one of my favorite qualities. I love the jagged way it can scrape at your soul with nothing more than a struck chord. I love how it sends chills down my spine and leaves a feeling of raw, unresolved promise.

But dissonance in life is hard to wade through. I think it can be the product of many circumstances, but it for me it is always internal. Something inside of me feels off.

I hate it. And the worst part is...I know where I need to turn. I know what I need to do. So why is it so hard? Part of why I feel like my soul is out of orbit with my body is all the change that is gripping at me, trying to pull me in a million directions, trying to tear right through me it seems. Change is hard. Necessary. But so hard.

Some thoughts as I drift in and out of after-show haze tonight:

I have so many unrealized dreams. Yet I have unlimited potential.

I have so many beautiful, good desires. And they never seem satisfied.

I have a handful of wishes I've been tossing in the same well since I was little. Nothings happened.

Do I need a different well?

I feel out of place. Everyone who has moved with me through life is moving or has moved on. And I still float, drifting along, grasping for anything to help me reach that shore where everyone I love seems to be.
How long will I float, I wonder? How long will I feel dissonant? How long until I can run away... because I can't stay floating here forever.

Dissonance is ironic. It has an intriguing pain to it. But without dissonance, the resolution of it would not exist. And that's the part I'm wanting. The song that's whispered its way through me the last few months has washed me in dissonance. I am ready for a beautiful resolution.

Sometimes I want to feel pretty

Sometimes I just want to feel pretty. You know the feeling. When I feel pretty I feel more. I feel deeper. I feel truer. When I feel pretty there is even more power in my words and more conviction driving my actions. Its great to do something great...but isn't it better to do it pretty? No, no no. Do not misunderstand. I do NOT mean 'pretty' pretty. I mean pretty. I don't mean how you look. I mean the feeling. The feeling of pretty.

Feeling pretty.

When a boy looks in your eyes and you know he sees past your outside pretty to your inside pretty.

Feeling pretty.

When a boy kisses you not because you are pretty, but because he wants you to feel pretty.

Feeling pretty.

When your world is falling apart and you still find the pretty.

Feeling pretty.

When you've conquered a fear and you look at yourself and see your new set of smiles because of the conquered fear.

Feeling pretty.

Being looked into. Not at.
Feeling pretty.

Waking up with the sun melting over your face.
I want to feel pretty.

this shall NOT pass

I have never really liked when people say, "this too shall pass." Not only is it a massive blanket statement that people seem to utter when they just can't think of something a little more empathetic to say, but I actually find the phrase ironic.

Things don't pass.

We never really leave people, or experiences...totally behind us.

We collect them. And we carry them. They become a part of who we are. Experiences, good or bad might fade in the distance, but they will always touch us, shape us, color us...and we carry those colors through life.

I have this theory that we are all colored by our past. This is not a negative thing. How else do we grow in life? How else do we find strength, faith, and kindness toward others?

Life can be hard. Some of the colors can be dark and muddy, but they are OUR colors.

I proudly wear the colors of my past. They make me who I am today.

If I could walk on the moon

If I could walk on the moon, maybe I'd have the perfect view
Of everything around me, the stuff and people that surround me
I could see the tears between the smiles
And I could feel the breaths between the tears
If I could walk on the moon, maybe I'd have the perfect view
I'd be far enough away, I wouldn't feel pain
But I could maybe see it, and then I could avoid it

Maybe I would see the truth.
Maybe I could see You.
You the way you really are, if only I could get that far
Away from you to see

But I'm trapped in gravity

I wish I could float through space
And I could see the world that way
I wish I could walk on the moon
Because then I could really see you

With all your shades of yellow and white
And all the real, the wrong, the right
And it wouldn't matter what I see
Or what I know, or if my heart was worn and used
Because I'd be safe and on my moon

face suck in the hospital parking lot. a whole lotta yuck

So yesterday I took my dear sister Rachel to the hospital. She has been deathly ill (for those who didn't know) and had a whole buncha scares yesterday. She was told possible kidney failure, blood clots, you name it...she could have it. Anyways, I went with her to the labs to set up an appointment for her blood transfusion.

All went surprisingly well. We kept our spirits up and as we were walking back to her car I spied a couple eating each others faces in the parking lot. Hardcore making out. The hospital parking lot. If hospitals don't make me sick enough, I had to witness a young angsty couple trying to procreate RIGHT before my eyes.

Rachel turned to me, and in usual Rachel fashion said, "Unless one of them was dying and just found out they are not any more, that is sick."

yes. plain sick.

Maybe they did belong at the hospital.

I've learned more about life this semester than perhaps any other. In some ways, it has been my most challenging semester. I have had a mix of 'easy' and extremely difficult classes. And in that mix came a break up with someone who proposed to me, and a new friendship with someone unexpected. Life has taken me to a place where I had NEVER seen myself. I have never felt more opposition, and I can't help but attribute it to the fact that I think I am close to some really amazing things. I will be performing in Singin in the Rain this summer, which is one of my all time favorite musicals. It has that potent ingredient of nostalgia for me. I love the time period of the story, I love the dancing, I love the music...I love the rain. Everything about it. I love how I watched it over and over with my dad growing up.

I am also working on my very first demo cd this summer. I have written some songs that are cut straight from my soul, they are very real and raw for me, and I am so excited about producing something so honest.

I have a book coming out this September (crossing fingers I can revise my little heart away in time). A book. A BOOK!!! I am so very excited about this. It was always a dream of mine to publish something BEFORE I was done with college.

Thanks to my new friend, who happens to be a boy, I have learned SO very much about relationships, communication, and that there are people out there, specifically men, like me. I have discovered that wanting a man who actually supports my dreams and in fact believes in me is something I can have. I can have that. I was used to relationships where 'convention' was the only path and my dreams came second. I was used to relationships where I didn't even feel connected, and I foolishly attributed that disconnection to the fact that we were just men and women and would forever be DIFFERENT.

Now I know there are men out there made of the same cloth, stitched with the same thread, and constructed loosely like myself. And knowing that feeds me with hope.

I've learned this semester that its okay to dream. Its okay to hope. Its okay to feel. Hurt. Happiness. Pleasure. Its okay to let someone in. Its okay to let someone go. Its okay if I don't do everything the way "everyone else does it." I'm doing it the way I've always wanted.

I've learned Me this semester. A strange, slippery, random subject that is still a blank field and I still have so much to learn, but at least I took that first course.

Skimming the Surface

There are two ways to go through life. You can skim or you can swim. I think I used to be a skimmer...floating over ideas and situations, barely touching them so that they could NOT touch me, but recently I have been a swimmer. Diving deep. Swimming to places that are foreign and cool and bumpy to touch, but full of life and adventure. I know that if I want less scrapes and scars I should skim, drift above it all and just take in the view. But I'm not afraid of the scars anymore. I'm not afraid to sink to the bottom just so I can experience that rush when I shoot back to the top. I'm not afraid to swim. I want to touch and taste things that scare me. I want to FEEL life instead of just look at it. I am feeling braver day by day, and I swim deeper with every breath I take.

Finishing this semester is going to be a deep swim. Tough and full of late nights and skull cracking headaches- but I'll get there. Watch me :-)