Fall Away from Your Past, But It's Following You

If I knew the formula, I would figure out everything that's wrong with my life and be perfect. I haven't.

But I'm doing my damnedest. I am fighting with all that I have, and that has to be enough. It's got to be, or what else is there?

umbrella for rain

so it cannot touch my head

the street is quiet

darkness into light

falling behind emotion

into what could be

haikus eat long grass

or whatever they can find

to munch between teeth

Yo, Year! You're Over

This used to be one of my favourite times of year, when almost everyone had left dorms but there were enough of us left to keep it sane and I knew who was coming back and where I was headed. It feels like a morgue instead. There are enough people left, and I love the ones who are, but I really miss the ones who aren't. They only left today and it already feels empty here.

I don't know what I am doing in September. Up until a few days ago I was dead set against coming back, except for maybe one class, but now part of me really just wants to finish with the people I began the journey with three years ago. I miss when I knew and when decisions felt easy because they were.

I have to start packing but none of me wants to. I want to stay here in this perfect day forever, sun shining and cool breeze blowing and bittersweet goodbyes and perfect hugs on the grass and a case of 7up at my fingertips. If the sun goes down on today, the rest of my todays will be uncertain. I like the certainty that only today can bring.

We leave on Sunday for five weeks in a bus and I no longer know if it's crazy or the best thing of my life. When I get back, big decisions will have to be made, as well as big money. For now, though, I'm just pushing hangers to fill both sides of the closet and moving my mattress to the bottom bunk. It is suddenly very, very lonely and I have the sneaking suspicion that my wishing this year away worked better than was good for me.

Day 1 - When We've Been There

Today marks the beginning of another. Hello, round three. I will not be talking about it much, except in minutely interesting side references in blog titles, but it is the start and that requires I take some note of it.

I have hit a place where I have finally had enough. God and I are not close enough. I flee genuine relationship with Him like it is something I should fear, something I may lose my life over. Heh. Right. And then I sit here in my desert of terror instead of on the frightless island of my own making that is as easy to get to as closing my eyes. I need to get over whatever this is and let Him save me all the way.

Get ready. This semester just got a whole lot slower.

Leave. Me. ALONE!

I should be writing a paper right now, but I am actually so bothered that I am incapable of doing so until I get this off my chest.

LEAVE ME ALONE.

I'm tired of this. Sick and tired. You have no respect for me whatsoever. You didn't then, and you sure as hell don't know. Don't feed me crap about caring or being sorry or whatever else you've come up with. This whole not talking thing is not ending any time soon. It's been months and I still don't think it's been long enough to feel enough of a gap between us. What exactly runs through your mind in situations like these? Options:

A) Maybe she's not mad anymore. I am. More so than I thought.

B) Because she won't talk to me, I'll send her cruel, lying messages when I look at her. I hated you lying before, and it's no more acceptable now.

C) Because she won't talk to me, I'll send her highly inappropriate messages through my eyes that I fully mean. Inappropriate. Keep your eyes to yourself.

D) As if I haven't made her life a living hell as it is, I will actively make it worse and bring up all her worst memories so that they are rubbed in her face at every possible opportunity. Ouch.

I don't know if any of these are true, maybe all of them are just speculation. If so, I do not want to know what the truth is. Or maybe at some point they're all true. If so...like I said, leave me alone.

I am not a grudge person in general, so these big emotions surprise and almost scare me. I thought I was beyond this. But then again, I thought you were too.

Ugh! Enough! I don't want to be like this anymore. I don't want someone else to control me even in the slightest. I want to move past this and get on with my life, without you in it. I don't know what else to say. Most of the time...I just pity you. That saddens me, possibly more than anything else.

A plea. You may never see this. But still, a plea. Just...leave me be. I am trying to heal, not just from you but from everything else life has thrown at me. Let me do that in peace. I cannot afford to feel this bad anymore.

Please.

Sit Down, Take a Load off and Make a Sandwich with Me

Things only seem to get increasingly difficult, and this week promises to be the hardest yet, but I am holding on to the fact that God is still here. "And when all else fades, You remain." A lot is fading; tomorrow morning I get to drive one of those fading pieces to Pearson. But. Even if I were the only one left, there's still One who would be by my side. And that is enough to pull me through.

Full of Words, But Not the Right Ones

Tonight I sat in a car and had one of those alone-in-a-packed-room experiences. Literally packed full, and me alone in the midst of it. But what could I say?

I am so full of words to write, to think, to say...and none of them are the ones I need right now. Did I say too much tonight? Did I let a moment slip me by at 6:52pm? I am freer and more confined at the same time than I have ever been. Will February define me, or do I have to wait around for April? Is this the wrong music for an uplifted mood? Red is definitely my colour. I cannot wait until Monday afternoon. Who will I be tomorrow?

And it's enough thoughts to build a city, but none of them will bring anyone to it.

Soup, Dreams and Restless Affections

I am in a good place. I don't have a lot of (or enough) money, but I don't care. School is starting soon and I'm thrilled like I never thought I could be again. And the world is laid at my feet.

But.

I am so restless. I can feel every nerve in my body standing on edge, waiting for excitement that just isn't coming. I want thrilling, daring adventure, and none is appearing over the horizon. Everything is the same, or some version of before, and I am alone. I want to be entering a new stage of life! Everyone around me seems to be getting married or having kids, and all I want to do is scream at them: "This is my dream, not yours! Go find your own!" I know that in a few days this will pass, but until then I am happy to soak in the depression of being without purpose. I can't tell you what a few months from now will bring, and that leads me to believe that at some point, something exciting will show up in the peripherals of my boredom and save me from a life of dull.

Tomorrow, I already know, will be a long day. All the Chinese food is gone. I just discovered that I can only escape to Rockband for so long. I need to go paint car wash signs. At the moment, this is all that my life holds. But somehow, I need to find it in myself to be content with where I'm at right now, because if I don't then I fear that even when I do have all I ever wanted I won't recognize it and will keep striving for more. So this is me throwing off the burden of restlessness and being happy with macaroni soup for dinner.

Of Consequence

I'm trying to figure out where I stand.



Am I okay with this life, exactly the way it is, exactly where I'm at? Or should I have packed my bags and headed to Greece or back to Cuba or some lost island in the Pacific by now? When I look back in ten years, slightly more settled than now, will I regret that I spent the most fun-possible years of my life strapped into Bible college and holding a non-paying career that would better fit someone in their thirties?



Am I stupid to believe in a one true love? Here I sit: flat on my butt, waiting for the man of my dreams, because my heart has been convinced that there will only be one guy for me. Is having fun until he shows up really not an option? And what if there is never any "he" to show up? If he doesn't exist, I'm waiting around on a misty, dreamy, pathetic nothing.



Do rules really mean anything? Right and wrong? Good and bad? Just words, or do they have the eternal meaning I've been brought up with? At times I feel so settled in my convictions, and then BAM! I find myself at a loss for stability; I am no longer on the solid ground of fact. Rather, I am consumed with pondering my existence and if it's wasting away before my eyes.



Question of the day. If I were not accountable to anyone, if I felt no obligation to anyone: my family, church, friends, school; if they just didn't care or I somehow stopped caring if they cared, would I walk away? Would I abandon God's call on my life and just flit away into oblivion? Would I take the high road still, or would I allow myself to fall away and become the person only created in my most horrible nightmares and most daring, exhilarating dreams? Nevermind question of the day. This is the question of my life.



So the ultimate question I am left with is one I don't want to face. It's boring holes through my brain as I type, and I'm trying to ignore it. But here it is, hopelessly drawing itself out of the depths of...myself? Here it is, bringing itself before the world for judgment. Here it is:



Are all these questions inconsequential? Even though I mean them, does my heart already know the answer? Is the deepest part of my soul already crying: "HOLD OUT! DON'T LET GO!"? Because I fear that deep down, I have no choice, no options. Free will? No way. He's told me what He wants from me, and now that I know...how do I turn away? This scared-to-death-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach feeling I'm getting right now tells me that I don't know what I think; I don't want to know what I think. I've been falling in love with Him every day since the day I turned eighteen, but is that enough?



I don't know if it's enough.