Composing a Symphony

I will be the first to admit that I really know nothing about music. I know what I love and what stirs my soul and what makes me wish I had been born without ears, but when it comes to the mechanics I am lost. Part of it is that I get impatient when I try to learn something, even if it comes naturally, and part is that I know that my life has a different purpose driving it. But just once, it would be nice to be crazy talented. Beyond the talent, though, there is a great misunderstanding between me and music. I understand that a particular swell or key change moves my heart, but I haven't a clue about the method behind it. Yet here I sit, composing a symphony.

Breaking my life down into movements is not difficult, as they generally revolve around God. By generally, I mean absolutely. I used to define years, when I was in high school, based on the guys in my life; I look back now and see no difference because they all blend together into a mash of mistakes and brokenness. Then God came on the scene: great in power and satisfying to the massive hole that transcended every part of my being. Holla, second movement. Then, as quickly as He came, He seemed to disappear. I know now that when God looks as though He is absent, it is either I who am absent or He is teaching me something. Or both. I have been floundering in a less than graceful manner ever since. Ebb and flow, high tide and low tide, flotsam and jetsam, driftwood and motorboat. I am a mess of life composition.

Today is a triumphant hailing of this movement's final notes. Life is moving with purpose again and I have never been so excited. I have money. I have a car. I have a career plan. I have the freedom of being nearly done with school for good. I have an expectation of good things to come. I have peace. This peace has been bought at a very great price, but it was worth every agonizing minute that led me here.

Thank you, God, for perfectly timing every second.

All in All

Now, with 2.633 hours of perspective, I feel that I am better able to do 2010 justice. Yes, there was a lot of school. A lot. But there was also so much more.

Much of it is in the dark (which led to such a mundane list yesterday), but the things that shine through are worth noting.

I ate a lot of instant noodles, be it in the form of soup, KD, or chow mien.

I lived in another basement, with very different people from last time. It held some of the best times, but I wouldn't go back.

I went on two roadtrips. One ended prematurely in Jasper, leaving us stranded and cold and hungry and alive. The other brought me through five states and five thousand kilometers in three days, and left me crying and praying and breathing again.

I checked, there were two car accidents this year. January and November. After January and the two roadtrips this year and one last year, November finally did in Cameron. Poor Cameron.

I had my heart broken enough to need several transplant surgeries, and then I broke my own.

I had front row seats to the demise of my personal civilization; everything I worked for, gone.

I have had the most wonderful year of seeing the most wonderful man. Please don't read too much into that.

I watched six seasons of Gilmore Girls (fourth time through) in less than two months, and watched countless other series from my bed, the smoker's couch, my creaky chair and my good chair. Oh the days.

I went to Toronto and made it back alive, despite many desperate phone calls, skype dates and tearful outbursts, which, at the time, suggested I would not be so lucky.

I fell in love with God again. Even without feeling Him. Then I lost it again. I am going to get it back again.

Heh. Right. I also survived. It is 2011 and I am still here.

The Roadtrip Saga: From Silence to Solace (Day 3)

My final morning of roadtripping found me too hot and too early. Knowing this part of the I-5 even with my eyes closed, I had plenty of time to think and really take stock of my current situation. Burnt out, exhausted and emotionally spent I had set out on my journey, yet now only two days later I could feel my spirit lifting. The pain and hurt and disappointment weren’t gone, but the aching emptiness was slowly being picked apart until it became ineffectual.

Nearly two years ago, the August before I began Bible college, I was in the best place I had ever been in spiritually. My faith was rock solid and I knew who I was in Christ. But it wasn’t enough; I had to go deeper. I told God both the scariest and most daring thing possible: I gave Him permission to turn my world upside down, to bring me to a place where He was central...even if it meant breaking me. And He did.

I have come to a place of near indifference. I know it all in my head, but my heart is cold. I take back what I said; He didn’t have to break me because I broke myself. And then life happened and more life and more than any life should ever see. And I have been left with a cold indifference that supposedly saves me from any more pain. But here I am. Core. There is nothing deeper. And I want Him. I want Him so bad somewhere deep down, but I am SO afraid that He’ll just continue to let me break.

And then.

For no reason at all I began singing “How He Loves Us.” I have sung that song possibly one hundred times, and suddenly I was crying uncontrollably and everything was rushing at me from a new perspective.

He is jealous for me!

afflictions eclipsed by Glory

just how beautiful You are! (california mountains at sunset kind of beautiful)

Your affection is for me

He is my prize (at the end of everything, He is what I get. amazing)

there is grace in His eyes, and it draws me to redemption

I don’t have time to maintain these regrets! (regretting takes precious time that I don’t have. seriously, Leanne, get it together!)

Life doesn’t make any more sense and I’m left with more questions than I started with, but I can take it smiling. Smiling! Brilliant.

And then I was almost taken out by a FedEx truck trying to avoid a swerving school bus.

And just outside Portland I saw my first B.C. plate since early day one, on an old blue Dodge truck. It feels like home.

Home felt like a good place to go. Talking to people...maybe not so bad.

I probably didn’t capture it very well, but this trip changed a lot of things for me. I may still be broken, like that piano. But God can still use me for beautiful music; He just needs to tune me. And I’m still in a pretty dark place, but God’s here in it. And the darkness is as light to Him.

29

The twenty-ninth of the month is always the most difficult for me.

I was watching Grey's Anatomy some day in the last week (it shouldn't be surprising that I don't remember which day; I watch Grey's every day) and one episode had a woman who came in because she had a heart attack. With testing and a little background search, they found out that she had come into the hospital with the same symptoms on the same day every year for seven years.

The why? The neighbour Ted had died that day seven years before, and she had been having an affair with him. They had been in love for over twenty years. Now, on the anniversary of his death, she literally came in with a broken heart against her will.

The twenty-ninth of the month is the same for me. It's not even that I hurt on the yearly anniversary; I am broken again once a month and don't even realize why until I check the date.

It's been almost five years. That's fifty-four months. Fifty-four "episodes." I want it to stop but I don't know how. Especially when people insist on using this day to break me on their own terms.

End rant.

Green

Grass is green. So is this sweater. So are my eyes. So is youth. So...what?

I miss the smell of wet, freshly cut grass. All my favourite sweaters are green, and so is my least favourite. It usually takes years of someone knowing me for them to realize the colour of my eyes. Young, innocent, easily broken like a tree, youth.

So is my envy.

It's one of the ten, one of the seven, and the one that I can most easily disguise because it looks pretty good on me. Everywhere I look, there are people who I consider enviable. When will I wake up and finally have those things that I don't consider too much to ask for?

Sane, healthy, lovable, fertile (for lack of a better adjective)...too much to ask? Happy, even sometimes? Apparently.

When You Know, You Just Know

I had an enlightening conversation tonight. I talked and talked until somehow the truth came out and I was amazed at my own eloquence. Nostalgia, of course, mixed with hindsight and the truth of every circumstance, eventually coming together in perfect harmony.

I say "no regrets" a lot because a few years ago I decided that I did not want to turn into the kind of person who always regrets and spends her life looking backwards. Despite my best intentions, tonight sounded a lot like regret. It is not often that I break down over non-mistakes.

My wall is littered with photos of "I'm sorry"s and "remember when"s and "life was simpler then"s. I want to take fewer of those this year. I would much rather save friendships than pictures.

I don't know what to do to be different. How do I stop myself from becoming that person I both hated and somehow couldn't let go of? Even now, it's a struggle every morning to disentangle my fingers from the deceptions and temptations that so easily ensnare. So far the last few days I have been successful, and it's giving me a new sense of hope. Is it possible to only rely on God for love and fulfillment, or am I doomed to constantly fall? Today says the former, and I really want to keep it that way.

BROKEN
Originally posted: June 29, 2007

Sometimes I think our hearts don't even belong to us.
They do exactly what they want, even if everything inside of us is telling them it's not worth it.
Then they break. And we break too.

Starts with Goodbye

I hate all these stupid, sad blogs lately. I hate that they're what is pouring out of my heart, and that I have no control over any of it. Most of all, I hate that my time for grief is over and it's time to move on; sitting in my own misery is 100x easier than getting off my butt and changing things.

I have only a few weeks of freedom left, and I am using them, baby! I cannot stand to be this depressed, angry person anymore. I hide it well right now, (I think), but how long can that last? This is me breaking free and deciding that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

These are the last words on the subject. Ever. I promise not you, my faithful readers, but myself. This is for me so that the last bits of healing can take place without the wounds being reopened by my own stupidity. So here they are:

There was no monumental, emotional goodbye. There was a chance meeting, a brief, puddle-deep chat, and a broken promise that doesn't matter anymore. And then nothing. So this is my goodbye. I don't know what the future holds or where our paths might cross again, but this is the end of the road for me, unless you change your mind. I refuse to cry over you ever again. You might not have wanted to say it, hear it or see it, but I need that closure, with or without you.

Goodbye.

"Sometimes moving on with the rest of your life starts with goodbye."