"somewhere only we know..."

when does loneliness hit us harder-when we are in need, or when we are surrounded by joy?

*it may seem impossible to be surrounded by joy when lonely...this is not true. i have come to the conclusion that one can find joy in many things and even within oneself...and as another aside, the "loneliness" i speak of can take place on several levels. one can be lonely for family but surrounded by friends, or lonely for a lover when surrounded by family and friends...or any combination of such.
but i digress*

i guess i really can't answer this for anyone but myself.
and i really can't form i 100% certain, 100% concrete answer.

when i feel like i need something, i.e. when i have had a shitty day, when i think there is a ghost in my apartment (no, really), when i lock myself out of the car in the pouring rain in the middle of BFE...yeah. feeling alone, and lonely, is the worst feeling in existence. such occurrences seem to just mock you..."hahaha, loser. look at you. your day/week/month/life SUCKS and to top it all off, nobody cares, you are ALL ALONE." but see, everyone feels like this sometimes. i know this. why don't the lonely people get off the pride and just...wait. i know the answer to this. i won't go there.

but.
i think it's worse to feel lonely when surrounded by joy.
i want to run, to shout, to sing, and i have nobody to share this with! nobody! i hate it! and the loneliness is not a feeling of "nobody exists" but one of "nobody exists who will care about this like i do, who will get this, who will get me."
i get this feeling at least once a (good) day.
tonight i went walking, in the rain, to buy organic raspberries for breakfast tomorrow. the music on my ipod was good, the rain was light...i got home, took a hot bath, wrapped up in a blanket and sat down to write. and i can't describe how i feel inside, but...i really do enjoy all this time to myself. i do. but sometimes i wish i could share it.

and i feel an emptiness...

but i came to some conclusions on this walk. some things i have been thinking about lately...
more wisdom from elizabeth gilbert's eat, pray, love...a friend says something to her along the lines of "he cracked your heart open so that the light could come in..." talking about a broken heart.
(side note: i find the name of gilbert's heart-breaker amusing. heh.)
hm. well. my fucking soul was blown open, and i might add that i guess it was done so all the badness could seep out at the same time the light comes in...kind of like a transfusion.
in yoga today, the teacher was saying, as usual, "your mantra is 'lock your knee.'" but since i am a veteran student i always have my own mantra. lately it has been "fatpigfatpigfatpig" but it is doing me no good, so today i tried "badness out, beauty in" and it worked much better.

i realize also that people tend to run away, give up, leave, get pissed off, or whatever, for reasons that i guess later they find out are things that, you know, other people do also. i NEVER said i was quiet. i will shout this to your face. i will throw all the bad stuff out right away so people know what is really there. then i start to let the good things show. it's just how i work. kind of like, the opposite of how most people work. it might take a year, two years, for truly good things to start peeking their heads out...but hey...what did that ketchup commercial teach us?

i'm inspired. i want to go to indonesia, and meet medicine men. i want to go back to pahoa, and hug a banyan tree again. i want to live in chicago, and i want to spend a lot of time in the mountains. i want to find, and ask, and discover, and laugh, and cry, and be constantly active, and write. i guess lately i've been so caught up in what is going on right now that i keep forgetting that it's all a way to get to these places i want to be. i just have to figure out how to enjoy this right now while i have it.

because.
that was the point all along. the plans...well, those were for after the "right now." but me, i was the one who remembered that.
but hey.
i guess now, the darkness is seeping out, and the light is pushing its way in...s-l-o-w-l-y.


as i always, always, always said:

"nothing that's worth it is ever easy."

this is what i mean

she's a bit off, i'd say. lately she's been staring off into space, or looking at strangers, fantasizing about them, but she doesn't want to be like that at all. she moves awkwardly on crowded dance floors but is graceful at the center of a silent room, and can't easily make eye contact right away but tends to do well with body contact. she might be in love with a character from a novel and she is convinced he exists in her life and has been ever since she first read the damn thing. she likes the feeling of starving and coming home to eat if it has been a good night. she has crazy dreams of losing earrings and uncontrollable cars. she won't buy toilet paper but she will buy too many new clothes, and too many new books. her life is like a modern day "kubla khan" but what is life for if not for dreaming and imagining? she does so many things just to be ironic and sarcastic and seeks out the one person who might just understand even a small part of that...so many people misconstrue those things...she is tired of unfulfilled dreams. the best things in her life are things that have happened by complete random human error or accident or serendipity or whatever you want to call it. she is too captivated by mirrors, by others' eyes, by movement. she is easily distracted at the wrong times. she is

can't take it

i fear
you thought
the perfect me would be
me now (not then)
but me ... now
full
of
wisdom


opinions

e n e r g y



memories philosophy thoughts words dreams


voice
and


life

but with an "off" button

an old one

on a saturday in january, she decided that she was going to jump out the window. it was only 3 stories up, but there was nothing but concrete below, and she knew how to swan dive.
she opened the window and looked down. cold wind rushed into the bedroom and made her step back. walking over to the dresser, she plucked a coin out of a jar of golden dollars. back at the window, she stuck the entire top half of her body out, stretched out her arm, and held the coin between her thumb and forefinger. she released it, hoping to see it make impact with the sidewalk. it fell in front of a white-haired man with a large nose and sloe eyes behind thick glasses. he bent over, picked it up, and examined it in a gloved hand. he began to look up, and she quickly flattened herself against the window frame, like spies do in the movies. tears welled up in her eyes as she saw the old man's sad face transform into a smile.
she stuck the top half of her body out of the window again. she looked right, then left, then down at the people walking by. people with dogs, people alone, people with children. going to work, going to the store, going home. the busy city street lulled her for a moment, and as soon as she snapped out of it, she dashed back across the room and grabbed the entire jar of golden dollars.
back at the window, she sat the jar on the floor and picked out a coin. after a quick look down, she stuck her hand out and dropped it. "that," she thought, "is for my overbearing asshole of a boss." she picked out another one, put her hand out the window, and dropped it without looking. "that is for the stupid guy who cheated on me with not one but three other women." another coin. "that is for the headache i get every single day." she took a step back and launched a coin as if it were a tiny frisbee. it made a ping sound as it hit a streetlight. she giggled. "for the medical bills i am still paying off, even though the doctors did nothing for me." she flicked one out between her thumb and ring finger, the way kids flick pennies. it hit the wheel of a passing car. "for people who make rude comments under the guise of 'helping'."
she kept tossing and flinging golden dollars out the window until the jar had only one coin left. she replaced the jar on the dresser and went to bed, about fifty dollars poorer, but fifty burdens lighter.

i'm bringing...old apartment back?

i want to move back to my old apartment.

i moved here for a lot of wrong reasons, and a very few right ones. a few more good things have made themselves known since i moved in, but this place still does not feel like home. a lot of things have changed since i moved in, and i still miss my old home. i feel like i became "me" in my old place, and i am sorely tempted to call my old landlord and ask if there is a vacancy in my old building.

i miss the multiple windows, the hardwood floors, the archways, and the fact that nobody cared when i sang "you and i both" at the top of my lungs at 6am on saturday mornings while doing dishes. i miss the never-ending hot water, the pink bathroom, carondelet park, the window above my kitchen sink, and so many memories.

i remember the break-in, and telling the police that i was leaving: "i'm gonna be late for yoga." they were stunned.
i remember listening to the streets, and being asked if it was "gangsta rap."
i remember "watching" wicker park.
i remember coming home and screaming into a towel.
i actually do remember cutting that memory foam thing.
i remember stumbling home and singing gavin degraw into my freezer full of lean cuisines.
i remember the summer of fifty first dates.
i remember that no wallet fiasco.
i remember marley.
i remember coming home from hawaii, feeling defeated, to find so many surprises.
i remember coming back to that apartment to mend a broken heart, to find a mess, and building it all back up again, and making it home again.
i remember so many other things.
i remember moving out, trying not to cry, and crying, and thinking, "this is just not the last time i will see this place, i know it."

now. living where i live now has advantages. the big one is this: i am ONE MILE AWAY from my yoga studio, and a short distance from forest park, whole foods, and a lot of other things i do or enjoy. ONE MILE FROM YOGA. that saves time, gas, stress, and energy.

but i have...carpet. ugh. and neighbors that cook nasty-ass-smelling chitlins. the rent is almost twice as high. it is smaller, and the floor squeaks.

and it doesn't feel like home.

i originally moved here thinking i would only stay until this may. i had a plan. but everything has changed now.

i lived in that old apartment for three years. i miss it. i miss it a LOT.
one phone call is all i would need to make to find out if i could move back in may.

what should i do, readers?
honestly? it's the yoga studio that's doing it for me. i can walk there now.
i'm afraid to move back because i don't want to be a 15 minute drive from my yoga studio.

crap.
give me a comment. help me out. what should i do?

stay here? try to go back? find a new home?

invisible

I turn the key in your door and open it as the sunlight illuminates particles of dust in the air. Papers, shoes, discarded clothing, yogurt containers, magazines, and water bottles: the detritus of a life litter the floor. I step in, close the door, and make my way around the studio apartment, methodically turning on every light. I get to the corner where the bed once was. Now, there is only a clean rectangle of carpet, untouched since the day you moved in.
I remember that day, you smiling down at me from the balcony as you hoisted a huge crate up with ropes. It was the hottest day in August, and it had rained that morning. I stood beneath you on the ground, sweating from the effort of attaching the ropes to the crate.
“What the hell is in that crate?” I laughed.
“Shoes,” you yelled down.
“All that work for shoes!”
“I like shoes. They last forever. My feet have stopped growing. If you take care of shoes, they last a lifetime,” you replied.
I am glad the bed has been removed. Your father told me they found you on the bed, fully dressed, wearing makeup, holding a plush turtle and a CD compilation. There was an empty wine bottle on the night stand, next to an empty generic sleeping pill bottle. The words,“unlovable. misunderstood. invisible.” were written in blue ink on your left arm, on the pale skin above your wrist. There was no letter.
Your family asked me to come take anything I wanted, anything I would like to have to remember our life together. I sit down among a pile of your clothing, your favorite pink coat sighing dejectedly under my weight. I feel like a fraud. They have no idea that five days ago, I told you that I could not handle your sadness any more, and that I was exiting your life forever. They have no idea that you gave me back a huge box of things that remind me of our life together. They have no idea that every single thing in this apartment reminds me of our life together, and that the secret will tear at me for an eternity.
I feel a sudden rage at all these things that you thought would make you happy. So many things, scattered across the floor. I stand and start kicking at things: clothes, makeup, books, shoes, jewelry, until I am one with all the stuff, one of the things that just could not make your sadness go away. I scream and scream until my throat hurts and finally I lay down, sobbing, on your pink, vintage sofa-patterned coat, and inhale your scent. I wanted to try harder. I still want to try harder, and I hate it that now I can’t. Across the room, I see the plants that you loved so much, still alive and reaching for the sun, and I think that is ridiculously unfair.
In the past few days, people would see me, and ask how I was. “It’s not your fault,” they would all say. Any response I could have possibly had was lost in the canyon of despair inside me. I opened my mouth but my vocal cords would freeze, and a few perfunctory words would force themselves out like concrete bricks crashing to the floor.
I want to tell you these things; that it’s you that I need to help ease this pain, but it’s too late to say anything that I need to say. I begin to pick up the pieces of a life and put them together, hoping it will somehow start to make sense.

invisible: a saga

i drive to the store in my messy old car, not caring that the trash in the passenger side is spilling over into the driver's side. it won't matter anymore, after tonight. nothing will matter anymore, after tonight.

the flourescent lights make the blue veins in my hands look even more prominent as they clutch the black handle on the cart. i wheel it slowly through the produce aisle like any normal shopper would, picking things up and putting them back down. baby carrots...i don't need baby carrots. little fruit cups...i fight back tears as i place the stupid thing back on the shelf. i pick up my pace as i make my way towards the other end of the store.

i take an inordinate amount of time in the wine aisle. red? white? pink? pink wine? really? what does pink wine even taste like? pink wine seems appropriate. how much does it cost? does that even really matter, right now? one of the employees walks by at a snail's pace and gives me the eye, as if it is odd for a well-dressed young woman with bloodshot eyes and an empty cart to be buying wine on a friday night. screw off, asshole, i think. you know nothing, and you can just keep on walking. i put the bottle of pink wine in the cart and make my way to the cashier.

"wine matches your coat," she says as i show her my ID. i try to smile but the tears fight it away. i'm sure she thinks i'm a well-dressed alcoholic who has fallen off the wagon, but again, i don't care, and she doesn't know my story, and she's just another face in another place. she has her own story, and i'm sure that in another world, i would love to hear it. but right now, i only have one goal, and the first step to that is getting out of here with this pink bottle and getting back home. i swipe my visa and walk out, $30 poorer and one bottle of wine richer. i don't even like wine. i hope i'll be able to finish it.

i make my other stop and head home. home. what a sad word for this place, i think. i remember what i recently thought of as "home." somewhere i will never, ever be again. a place i will miss sorely for eternity. a safe place that isn't even really a "place." for now, though, i struggle to unlock my door, and let myself in my apartment, and welcome myself to the only home i have.

i take off my pink vintage-sofa patterned coat and lay it on the floor. i sit on my bed with my wine and other things and look into my closet. the trunk full of shoes spills over on to the floor and mingles with some shirts that i don't have the energy to hang up. the floor is littered with papers and yogurt containers. my phone is somewhere in there, the battery long dead. my computer is on, the e-mail program up. i am tempted to give it one last look, but it will only confirm what i don't want to know.

i realize that i look pretty rough and get up and head to the bathroom. my hair is a mess. i pick up the scissors and go to work, making my bangs short. i always wanted short bangs. soon, the sink is full of hair and my face is framed with fringe. i look like a baby doll. i put on some make-up. i find a new t-shirt in the drawer, one i was supposed to wear on a trip, that never fit before. i guess losing my appetite had some advantages. i look in the mirror. sadly, i finally think i look good. i sit on the bed again.

i open the bottle of wine and take an experimental sip. gross. i knew it would be gross. i have to drink it, though. i guess that's what i get for choosing a wine based on my favorite color.

there are so many things i want to say, but i fear that i have said them all already, and they are met with resistant ears. i tried so hard. i am not what you think. tomorrow...i think. i can say it all tomorrow.



note to readers: this is the "other half" of a story i wrote and am trying to get published in the literary journal at my school. unfortunately, i can't publish that actual story here, because posting it online counts as "publishing" it, and then it wouldn't be eligible for publishing in the literary journal. i'll keep everyone posted on whether or not the thing makes it in. the original was much better, in my opinion. shorter, and more emotional, and just...better. more revealing, more to the point.

questions

how many times is that weird guy going to walk past my table?
why can't i concentrate on my paper?
how many times am i going to re-read that e-mail?
why don't i want to go to class?
why do people have to tell me things 434,433,672,732,773,786,894,144,993,999 times before i believe them?
why is my mother being mean to me? why is she nice to me when i am sad, and mean to me when i am happy?
can i please have one week off school?
if i had a time machine, would i use it?
why can i not be more organized?
why am i so impatient?
am i as big an idiot as i think i am?
can i please smack the staring eejit that is gaping at me right now?
if i skip class, will i fail?
if you are reading this, why?

jellyfish

last december, my old boyfriend and i went to chicago to see better than ezra at the house of blues. it was a good time, even though on the way there, i started to get sick as hell, and it only got worse. we stayed at a beautiful bed and breakfast in wicker park, and fell in love with the city.

we planned to leave sunday night, and our last stop sunday was the famous shedd aquarium. it was beautiful, but one single thing stuck in my mind.

the jellyfish.

they were in a tank on the end, and they were the most beautiful things i had ever seen. their transparency; the way they moved; the way they were colorful, yet colorless; the strange and eerie shape of their bodies suspended in water; their different sizes, some huge, some no larger than the head of a pin...i was transfixed, literally frozen, and i had to be pulled away to other people could finally enjoy the jellyfish.

i walked away amazed, and said, "you know, they are only so beautiful in that water. they are in their element. if you walked on the beach and saw a jellyfish on the sand, you'd gag. it would be one of the ugliest things you ever saw."

i tried and tried to get him to understand exactly how important this was, what exactly it meant, but in the medication and sickness brain fog, i was weak and tired, and figured i could just wait and explain it later.

later never really came.

last night, i couldn't sleep because of those jellyfish. they haunted me.

last night, i was a jellyfish. maybe i have changed a little, but lauren snapped a photo of me, and i was so surprised that i didn't look anything like i thought i would.

last november, there was an entire night's worth of photos taken of me that can only be described as "jellyfish on the beach."

this is starting to sound superficial, and that isn't the point. i need to wrap it up.

i wish more than anything that i could have felt so happy before. i really do. i don't know why i didn't, or what was different, or why i wasn't "in my element," or why i felt like that jellyfish on the beach. i just did. it still upsets me, and it will for a long time. and i'm sorry.

last year, today

on this day last year, i had a job that i hated.

on my way there, my camry died.

it died for good.

i had to clean out the trunk, and as a testament to how often i clean out my car, there were layers of the past three years of my life, waiting to be rediscovered.

on top, the natasha bedingfield cd that i listened to on repeat. one song, "unwritten," over and over. i'm always the girl that gets stuck on a song until everyone around me gets sick of it.

then, a paper tiara from new years 2006, that jerry from the crowne plaza swiped for me off a guest table in the ballroom, because i absolutely had to have one. that night, when i showed back up at 4 a.m., tom the night auditor gave me the key to the honeymoon suite, and i still think he did it on purpose. how embarrassing that was. that paper tiara is still in a box, which i sincerely hope is still being taken care of. i'm always the girl who wants to stay out all night on new year's eve.

under that, a bag of clothes and dishes from the day i left joey's house and moved back in to the apartment on wilmington. cesare was living there at the time, and we watched dvd's and ate cold stone creamery and basked in our misery. i slept on my bathroom floor for days. i was always the girl who was pretty bad at dealing with heartache.

another layer: wild oats polo shirt, wrinkled and balled up. a job i loved and hated at the same time. as i walked out on my last day, i felt a weight lift off my shoulders at the same time that i started to cry. i was always the girl who was bad at saying goodbye.

an old sticky, dirty pink yoga mat. when i started paying for yearly membership at the studio, they started supplying a mat each day. i no longer needed to use an icky sticky mat. i rolled up the mat that had taken me through my first year of classes and abandoned it in the trunk. i was always the girl who remembered where she came from.

at the bottom, a pair of angel wings from a halloween costume. in october 2003 (when the car was fairly new and clean) i left a party, and since i couldn't drive while wearing wings, i put them in the trunk and made my way home, to my old apartment on wilmington, to sing gavin degraw songs and 3am and sit at my old wooden leaf table by my french doors. i was always the girl who was upset that she only got to be an angel for one day.

at the bottom, in with the spare tire: an old quarter, likely from the previous owner.

i still have it.

i'm still the girl who holds on to things.

anonymous

the busy airport felt strangely like home; the noise displaced the silence n her head. she clutched her suitcase in one hand and a small mobile telephone in the other, wanting a distraction but unsure who to call. all of her lifelines were hundreds of miles away, and they may as well have been light years away.

people of varied expressions and styles of dress passed her by in every direction. everyone was in a hurry, even those in tropical vacation attire. she meandered along, staring out the long windows at the gigantic jets, turning her gaze ever now and then towards the tourists and business travelers to her left. she didn't pay attention to the constant jostle of hurried traffic passing her or the sea of voices surrounding her auditory space. the phone in her hand rang and vibrated, and she started as if from a trance. she glanced at the display, hit "ignore," and picked up her pace.

the bank of blue screens sat up ahead. she walked towards them with a new purpose. it only took her a moment to find that flight number 923 was still departing on schedule. another glance at the phone still gripped in her palm confirmed that she still had a ridiculous four hours to full before she could even begin to board her flight. time to buy some novels, drink a lot of coffee, forget the reason she was even here.

walking slowly once again, she noticed that there were more people moving along alone than in groups. that comforted her for a moment, then disgusted her. why should i take comfort that anyone else is alone? she pulled a small mp3 player from her purse and and finally let go of the phone, tossing it in the pocket where her headphones had been. after choosing a song, she entered the bookstore, offering a half smile to the cashier.

she blissfully passed half an hour browsing the shelves, losing herself in other people's words. when she had almost forgotten where she was, she felt her phone vibrating in her purse. again, she ignored it, but it brought her back to the present. after purchasing a few novels and magazines, she wheeled her suitcase out of the store and down the corridor to the restroom.

the fluorescent lights and cheap mirrors did her no favors. she sat her suitcase in the corner and stepped close to the mirror, examining her eyes. i look old. i'm 23. how appropriate. i feel old. i shouldn't be doing this. she looked down and washed her hands, thinking about how that didn't matter, that "should," because she just wasn't sure she was even happy anymore. she dashed out of the restroom before the mirror could capture her again.

a small, low-lit coffee shop sat up on the left. she parked on a small overstuffed chair and opened a thick novel, enjoying the anonymity offered by the airport. thousands of people rushing past, carrying their life stories in bags and briefcases, wearing outfits and expressions that only told pieces of their novels. people-watching proved more interesting than the book, and the remaining hours faded quickly.

inhaling, she reached for her purse and suitcase. it was time to go. a panic seized her as she realized that something was very wrong. where the hell is my suitcase? it's gone. she jumped up off the chair, grabbed her purse, and ran for the restroom. i left it in the restroom. shit.


i'm not going to panic, i'm not going to cry. she ran into the restroom, shoved past the line of women, ignoring the startled protests and rude cries. the suitcase wasn't there. of course it wasn't there.

she ran to the customer service desk for her airline. somebody must have turned it in. dumb luck was on her side; there wasn't a long line.

the customer service agent looked up at the harried young woman.

"i need you to help me. i've lost my suitcase." she pulled her driver's license out of her purse, along with her boarding pass.
"i'm sure someone has turned it in. what is your name, ma'am? can you describe your bag for me? what was in it?"
"i'm...emily...harris." she said it haltingly, as if it were an alias. "it's...my suitcase. you know. clothes and...things?" she handed the teenage customer service agent her ID and boarding pass. "i'm on flight 923 to..."
"it's okay, i have your information right here. i'll be right back."

she walked over to the bank of uncomfortable chairs and sat down. there really wasn't anything else she could do now. the flight was boarding, and her suitcase was lost. if someone had stolen it, then she would have to change her entire plan. maybe that was the entire point. then again...

"miss...mrs. harris?"
shit. so much for anonymous. thanks for reminding me.
the customer service agent walked toward her, the suitcase in tow.
it's here. the suitcase is here.
"someone turned your bag in about an hour ago. unfortunately, any unattended bags are subject to search, so..."
"it's all right," she interrupted him. "thank you."
"your flight is still boarding. you can make it."
"thank you. actually...can you tell me where to find the nearest rental car desk?"
the boy gave her a strange look along with the directions.

she stopped along the way to open her suitcase and mail the letter to the address she recognized as home .
i'm going to mail this letter, and then rent a car. i'm going to drive back, and stop if i feel the need to stop. i'm going to play a game with fate here, and whichever makes it back first-me, or the letter-that's what's going to decide what happens. whatever happens, i'm not getting on that plane.
she dropped the letter in the mailbox, reached into her purse, and turned the phone off. she had a long drive ahead of her, and she had a feeling that she wasn't going to want to stop.






a side note to readers:
i write a lot in class, when i am supposed to be paying attention. i don't go back and edit, so forgive any weirdness or incompleteness. this isn't meant to be "fit to publish." this is what goes through my head when i'm less than amused by what's in front of me.

(finally) inspired by poetry

i have a confession.

i don't like the whole romantic poetry thing-the classics-that we are studying in british literature right now.

but i was inspired by a piece we read today in class.

keats wrote "the eve of st. agnes" sometime around 1819. i'll admit to not reading the entire poem, but my professor sums it up like this:

madeline lives ina dream world, fantasizing about a dream lover and some perfect life that makes her happy, but doesn't exist. porphyro wants to come along and redeem her from this spell (and sure, he has impure thoughts in his mind as well, ha.) however, in his reality, there is no joy without pain. if you really love somebody, you will have to deal with reality (in the poem, mortality figures heavily.)
it is because of this that my professor calls keats the "romantic realist."
the question he posed was this: " is porphyro doing madeline a favor, or ruining her bliss?"
because, she was happy in her dream world...

*the above stuff, after the colon, came from my notes, just so you all know...*

however...

isn't that what i have said all along?

nothing, and nobody, is ever going to be perfect. you can hope, but things are sometimes hard, and really, in the end, it's how you deal with it that matters.

i've admitted that i'm a dreamer. i have no problem with that. but honestly, the danger of imagination is the disappointment when the world doesn't live up to your dreams. what then? you keep dreaming. reality can definitely live up to it-maybe not when you expect it-but it will. and the great moments live in between ones that may not be so great. it just works that way. you can 't just walk away from something saying, " well, we had some great times, but it wasn't easy enough," thinking something else easier is going to come along and take you by storm. really. maybe it'll just get harder...and it won't be so good. maybe "some" great times will turn into no great times, and then what? but maybe i'm wrong. at this point, i hope i am. wrong. i really, really do.

i woke up painfully early this morning (think 4:45 am) with an idea in my mind. i regret not writing it down, because i went back to sleep and now the idea is kind of lost, but i still have a few echoes of it bouncing around.

i'll admit that it's hard for me to walk away. my life has, thus far, consisted of a lot of "don't look back" decisions (flashback to showing up at the claims office and tossing all my stuff into a box, only stopping to talk on instant messenger for a few minutes...) but when it's not my decision? i'm lost. i'm completely chained down. in my half-asleep reverie, i half-dreamed about walking away...that it's hard, but it just seems easier... i guess the thought i woke up with this morning was that without realizing it, i'm walking, and i have some sort of direction, too.

photograph

when i moved into my apartment, i put some photographs up on my refrigerator with those magnetic clips. one large one took up the center of my freezer for over five months. a few weeks ago, i tearfully tore it down and shoved it into a large macy's bag along with many other things i could no longer bear to look at or own. since then, i have had an empty clip on my freezer door that keeps falling down every time i open the freezer, which is daily, when i retrieve my pink nalgene bottle for yoga.i have been wondering what the hell to put in that clip. i certainly don't need another photograph of myself, as i have at least four "solo" photographs up there (from colorado and such) and it seems a bit vain. i don't really like a cluttered fridge, but that clip falling every day was getting on my nerves, and the empty spot was reminding me of something that i needed to put behind me. tonight, it hit me. there is a song by the fray that i have loved for a long time. it is called "look after you," and i thought i knew exactly what the song meant. now i'm not so sure, but there is one line that i pondered over for a long time. he says, "forgive the urgency, but hurry up and wait..."what the hell does that mean? i kept thinking. i mean, honestly. well, my fridge now displays a ripped-out piece of notebook paper reminding me to "hurry up and wait," because now i think i kind of know what that means.

let's start with a piece i wrote in late summer 2005

this is an old "micro-fiction" piece from a while back...i posted this on the old blog, and i still love it. re-reading it now is almost frightening, because i was a lot less comfortable in my own skin back then...sure, i haven't made it to 100% comfortable, and maybe not even 75%, but this little paragraph sounds like a living hell, and i was in it. i didn't even realize how far i had come until i read this again just now.

i added the little "secret" at the end, as i often did in the past. i do that at the end of my posts, so be on the lookout.

"when i grow up i wanna be a socialite"
*she unlocks the door at 3:19 a.m. and steps into the frigid stream from the window unit across the room. it was a good night. ignoring the voice in her head telling her "no," she walks into the kitchen. distracted for a moment, she looks at her reflection in the darkened window, a youthful pixie with pigtails. she steps closer, leans on the sink, and sees the fine lines beneath her eyes, the faint but present furrow between her brows. there is a vase of dying tulips on the counter, a testament to the fact that someone cares in some way. she doesn't know why, doesn't want to know how. oblivion may be good at this point. she steps back again to view her whole body in the window. how did she let herself get this way? does she hate herself that much, or did someone hurt her so much that she feels unworthy of feeling good, feeling attractive? either way, she decides, it stops now. it is time for a change. this time will be different. no more excuses. she retreats to the bedroom and undresses, falls on the bed. her mind is full of thoughts: the night, how she acted, what she said, what she heard. she analyzes things too much. she needs peace. she needs something concrete, because a fuzzy reflection in a dark window isn't something she can fully grasp.*

my secret: i think people would know me more, understand me better if they read what i write…but i am afraid to suggest it sometimes

i'm here now. for now.

well. myspace is fun, and all, but i'm not generating the traffic i want, and it's a different kind of audience.
my old blog at wordpress wouldn't let me delete some of the more crazy rants that i composed during a hard time, and while i can't just forget that time ever existed...i don't want to make that all public for everyone to read and wonder "what the hell happened to her?"
therefore, i am up and running again, this time on blogger. we'll see if i actually keep up with this one.
a word of warning-i like to write, a lot-but i lose motivation if i don't get comments. so keep 'em coming, people. you are my inspiration. really.