"There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it."
- George Bernard Shaw
...So does that mean it's better to never get it and be miserable, or to get it and be miserable? I'm in a state of not being able to decide.
Sidenote: If a tragic beer bottle accident is the worst thing in the world for someone, they've got it good.
Haven't you noticed how certain festivities never seem to end? You're sad when they're over, but within seconds it's that time of year again. The time this time? Roll Up The Rim, baby!
Last year, there were many ridiculous adventures in rolling, from the time the cup of winners was left unattended and it took all my ethics and morals and convictions put together to not take the entire cup...all the way to the time I spilled my steaming cup of hot coffee all over myself on a first date and luckily it was a winner so I got another one (along with a conveniently awkward clothing malfunction and pretty severe burns). Ah, to be young and addicted to caffeine.
For the record, I can smile again when I look back on stuff like that. It duesn't hurt me deep down anymore, even when I stare it all in the face. Sometimes I miss the way things used to be, but my only regret is that I didn't appreciate it as much when I had it; I'm taking my lesson away for the future.
It's 3:28 in the A.M. and I'm eating Greek chips and drinking real orange juice with pulp (not from concentrate) and just finished watching One Tree Hill with Emily. I'm sitting on a lumpy couch with a misplaced pair of scissors beside me and a dream on the fringes of my mind that I can't quite grasp but can't let go of either...I think it had something to do with a cruise ship and a jeep and a long-lost something or other. I slept twelve hours last night. I did not stop eating for more than half an hour at any point since 4 P.M.. Oh, and I'm wearing Sunday socks, which is very confusing, which might help to explain how I forgot to put mascara on today (which is very unlike me and had me distracted the rest of the day...slash made taking my make-up off a thousand times easier tonight. But anyways...). This is me. This is exactly where I'm at and it has to be good enough. I have very little energy to give in a day, and the fact that I have that much to write about (and am even writing a blog, for that matter) is a miracle in itself. And tomorrow I'll work harder. And the next day, and the day after that. "And one day, you find you're strong enough to fight through the pain until it doesn't hurt anymore."
is just to love, and be loved in return.
Apparently I haven't learned my lesson yet, with God or with people. I forgot a long time ago what it feels like to be genuinely loved, and as a result find it even more difficult to believe it exists now. And as for loving...I don't feel capable of anything anymore. If deciding whether to get out of bed in the morning causes distress; if finding a place to go is limited to stalking my favourite shelves at Shopper's Drug Mart while the salespeople watch us (because we're the only people in the store at 11:30 on a Friday night) because my imagination literally can't go further; if I can blank out of entire conversations after asking several times to hear the same thing repeated that I actually want to know but cannot focus on for the life of me; if this is who I am, where the heck am I supposed to fit in loving someone else the way they deserve to be loved?
Today, for the first time in my entire life (not hyperbolizing, there are definitely people who can vouch for me), I could not care less if I never get married.
I meant to say more, but I think that last statement about sums me up.
We live in a world that pushes us forward, begging us to take the plunge and dive into whatever we most desire and to do whatever it takes to get it...sex, money, alcohol, drugs, power, fame, "happiness." And then we get hit with the double standard: when we, especially as women, give our all to get what we want, we're seen as conniving, pathetic, egotistical or slutty. We're taught in one breath to move as fast as possible for the ever-shifting finish line, and at the same time be prepared to hit the pause button at any moment and to somehow know when that should be. We're new at this, for crying out loud! I'm twenty-one years old, and I do not have this whole living thing figured out yet. I make a lot of mistakes, regularly, and at some point I need to stop apologizing for things. Some of the time, I'm really not sorry. And some of the time I'm even proud of myself. But for the rest of the times...I just need to change. Slowly. If I try to rush this part of the process, I'll really mess things up. I'm in way over my head, in ways no one even understands, but I think that if I go slow enough I'll be able to surface slowly and not burst my lungs from the pressure.
I have been bombarded all my life with conflicting messages, and they get harder to decipher every day. Relationships are the hardest. Always have been, probably always will be. It's at the top of the list for what I most desire, what I am most willing to sacrifice for, and therefore have the most power to hurt me. Go slow they tell me, as they throw images and story lines at me that tell me it's not possible to. Fast is the new slow. But fast love hurts just as bad as slow love, the potential for pain just comes more swiftly.
In the words of Brooke Davis, "Slow is good, but fast is better," but it begs the question "for whom?"
You know it's bad when the first thing you do is speed to Superstore and buy Cherry Garcia, even if it's ridiculously overpriced and way out of the budget.
This has to get better sometime...right?
I have been learning lately about what love really is.
Love for God
Love from God
Truly loving another human being
I guess Valentine's Day is coming up, but I only realized that after I started on this topic. I guess the truth is that I'm all out of love, so what am I without you? I think in lyrics lately. Quotes sometimes, but mostly lyrics. They put words to the unwordable thoughts. They rarely come out in context, as my heart has never been a fan, but instead the song just leaps forth from some unknown spring until I am immersed in the surety that within this ballad is the key to who I really am. It won't fit in the sentence the way it should, grammar will become a thing of myth, but I cannot get it out in my own words anymore.
I thought I knew what I was doing, and then I realized I didn't.
tell me
that we
belong together
dress it up with the trappings of love
i'll be captivated
i'll hang from your lips
instead of the gallows of heartache
that hang from above
"Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
My treasure has been in human affection for far too long and it has only served to wound me, then kick me while I'm down. I've been scared to death of dying here alone. But I don't think this is the way love was meant to be. It's the expressions of Your love I'm meant to seek after, not in-the-now, give-me-novacaine, insta-relief style "love." Unfortunately, I seem to have gone pro.
I'm also tired of being a stumbling block. That probably sounds egotistical, but I don't mean for it to be. When you think happiness, or college, or summer...I don't want you to think of a fling with me. I want something real. For you and for me.
I have spent the last several months searching for who I am. Every once in awhile, a song will catch me by surprise and I'll have a brief glimpse into what I'm supposed to see...that I am Yours. Brilliant, simple, overwhelming...and inconceivable. I can't grasp it. I know in my head that Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, which you'd think would include me, but it is just beyond my reach.
I want to surrender all to You, but I am still without the knowledge of how to do it. Please help me.
though i've tried to forget
You're all that i am
take me home
i'm through fighting it
broken
lifeless
i give up
you're my only strength
I have never spent so much time not sleeping when my body is clearly collapsing from exhaustion. I have apparently sprained the joint that allows my ribs to expand so that I can breathe. The result? A 3am hospital visit, lots of lost sleep, and unimaginable pain.
I'm not complaining or seeking pity, I'm just venting. I feel like I am completely out of control. It's just one thing after another that only seem to set me back. I have no motivation; even if I did I don't think I would physically be able to do anything anyway. You'd be surprised how much not being able to breathe affects things.
I've spent the majority of the last three days on some couch or another, on one painkiller or another. I desperately need to be delivered from this. My schoolwork is suffering, my body is hurting because eating only makes it worse, and this is adding more stress to areas I'm already struggling with.
God, I don't know where to go from here. I want to live every day to its fullest potential and really serve You, but I feel incapable and useless. Please help me to realize that you ask for my love above all else, not works to earn Yours. I really need Your comfort right now.
It may still be February, and I may live in Canada, but my heart is already in the summer.
The weather has been GORGEOUS lately, and I've taken full advantage. Yesterday Mel got home and I was laying around the house in short shorts and a tank top. Bliss.
As much as I have a special affinity for all the seasons on some level, summer has always stirred my soul in a way that nothing else can. It is then that I have always had the biggest changes of mind, action, and heart. It is also when I experience the greatest presence of magic; nothing says magic like 10pm sunsets and beach bonfires and roadtrips and laying on a blanket beneath the stars.
So if you see me wearing a skirt and flip-flops, or trying desperately to get my hair in a ponytail, you'll know why. I miss the magic.
SUMMER
Originally posted: February 3, 2006Summer nights fade to black and our laughter floats away with the heat.
We begin to forget the way things were, and people drift apart.
Only memories remain, sweet glimpses of a world where souls were passed around and the nights never ended.
It was only as the sun rose that we began to doubt our indiscretions,
afraid to meet the new person in the mirror.
In the dead of night, it never seemed wrong to clasp somebody's hand;
lucky for me, I had one to hold the whole way through.
But that has now all fallen away, yet we still live on,
waiting until another summer comes to carry us away.
arms to knees to chest
sitting still on the damp grass
still seems so surreal
quietly at first
the whispered words come shyly
i have lost myself
death relived again
for the dam of tears to spill
i can't control this
shaking in the cool
dusk steals in to hide you
i am so sorry
it has been two years
since my last visit to you
still in denial
as hard as ever
you live a block away now
i'm lost without you
I've become a stone. I can't cry for anything or anyone, and it's breaking me. Normally crying is a kind of release for me so that I can bring things to the surface and properly evaluate them. Right now I feel as if it's all still bottled up inside and I have no means by which to alleviate the pain that comes with the pressure.
Nothing is working. Someone has to be able to reach me...I can't do it on my own.
