you sting me

i suppose i deserve it, right
you do to me what i've done to you
i suppose it makes you feel pretty good inside
it makes me feel pretty awful

and i believe every word you say
but i don't really, not at all
maybe i just want to in the moment when you look so sincere

and you can't be straight with me either
can't look me in the eye
you've become a good liar
did i help with that?

you want me behind closed doors
but hardly acknowledge me in public
i can't even begin to understand the mentality behind that thinking
or why you think i'd be okay with that
or freely give myself to you the way you want

i can hardly be mad at you but have plenty of reasons to be
you remind me of my father
you remind me of your father
you sting me

i miss you to the moon

i miss you to the moon
and more than that
you woke me up again tonight

i miss you to the moon
even though you keep me far away
and i keep you tucked inside

i miss you to the moon
i said ask me a year later
and my answer is still the same

i miss you to the moon
"i wish it could have been easier
instead of any longer"

i miss you to the moon
dammit
i miss you to the moon

deep thoughts

so here i sit in front of the tv. i will openly admit that the idea of work made me sick today. coming off of the holiday vacation i assumed i would be a bit more ready to throw myself...all of my freakin self...back into my job so that my clients, the schools, and community partners could blow up my phone, email, and office with complaints, problems, and requests for interventions or advise.

with that said, i called in. i'm not proud of it but i don't feel guilty either. what i do feel guilty about is that i'm still in sweats...but they are my favorite sweats if that matters (Tennessee sweat pants and an Alabama sweat shirt...yeah, yeah, i know that doesn't go together in a lot of ways) and i have also been watching America's next top model for about 8 hours straight. How does that happen??? I've already seen these very shows about a million times... (it's the next to last season with arrogant Jade...seriously want to punch her in her mouth but she is quite stunning...i also have a slight crush on Nigel but i can't tell if he's gay...a common flaw of mine).

all i've been able to think about today is moving to florida, landing a fabulous well paying job, renting a house right on the beach and buying a boat that all my friends who will come visit me can enjoy. when i get into these modes i pretty much am worthless for the day. i come up with every strategy possible to make it happen soon pushing away all the sad parts about moving because then they would mess up my 24 hour obsession.

there is snow everywhere outside and it's colder than icicles everywhere i go. my friend bri loooooooves this weather. she constantly sends pictures to my phone from her fancy office window 13 stories up---Minnesota layered in white sheets of snow. the picture is then followed by a request to come visit her. maybe i should tell her that's really not the best way to allure me to visit....hey bri...that's really not the best way to allure me to visit.

i've been eating peanut butter and crackers all day, mostly because thats about all we have in our cabinets since Roscoe has figured out with his dog paws how to open our cabinets and eat everything he can get too...awesome.

i'm also ready to go over seas again. i've thought about that some today too. the funds are limited, specifically after the holidays...ooooooooooohhhhhhhhh my gosh, i'm broke...or at least more broke than i want to be, but i have to get out of here...HAVE to feel far away soon, have to see something new and experience something that moves my soul and connects me to the rest of the world/universe...my body aches for it.

Azniv moved today. it was sad. i stayed up late with her last night. she's been such a great friend and i hate HATE that she will be so far away. But she promised us a gig at "the earl" in Atlanta and we promised to drive to come hear her show. i don't like when my friends move away. it seems like that's happened a lot this past year.

i've started a new book, The Glass House. I love it.


i haven't stopped eating for about 3 weeks now...nor have i exercised. my clothes are pissed at me. everytime i step on the scales i make sure to take off anything that is very weighing just to make myself feel better...ha... i'm ready for a hair cut...maybe some bangs...Yes...i like that idea...but will my very round face and humongous cheek bones agree...

America's next top model kinda makes me feel bad about my body...wait no...it makes me want to get an eye lift actually...my poor eyes reflect a rough year... dark circles and recovering depression...i have aged a bit...i'm okay with it...mostly because i'm just glad to feel happy again. i refuse to drown this year.

i have to teach dance tonight... a few couples and then a group class...i love it so. I'm competing in February but my dance partners car has broken down and he lives far from me. the only option i have to practice is to pick him up and drop him off...yeah...that's not happening...is that terrible of me??? yeah it is, maybe i'll call him now.

i have a good feeling about 2008. i suppose i have to after last year. from the very start to the very finish it was difficult. but thus far, 3 whole days, has been quite enjoyable... i'll keep my fingers crossed and my mind/emotions in check. when i visualize 2008...like really see the numbers in my head...i see a sunshine around them...that could be because the forecast of sunny weather is in the bottom right hand side of my computer...but still...i will hold it as a promise.

...

Imagine his surprise to discover that the happiest, most confident woman he'd ever met was actually---when you got her alone---a murky hole of bottomless grief. Once again, I could not stop crying. This is when he started to retreat, and that's when I saw the other side of my passionate romantic hero---the man who was solitary as a castaway, cool to the touch, in need of more personal space than a herd of American bison.

His sudden emotional back-stepping probably would've been a catastrophe for me even under the best of circumstances, given that I am the planet's most affectionate life form (something like a cross between a golden retriever and a barnacle), but this was my very worst of circumstances. I was despondent and dependent, needing more care than an armful of premature infant triplets. His withdrawal only made me more needy, and my neediness only advance his withdrawals, until soon he was retreating under fire of my weeping pleas of, "where are you going? what happened to us?"

(Dating tip-Men LOVE this.)

The fact is, I had become addicted to him (in my defense, he had fostered this, being something of a "man-fatale"), and now that his attention was wavering, I was suffering the easily foreseeable consequences. Addiction is the hallmark of every of every infatuation based love story. It all begins when the object of your adoration bestows upon you a heady, hallucinogenic dose of something you never dared to admit that you wanted--an emotional speed ball, perhaps, of thunderous love and roiling excitement. Soon you start craving that intense attention, with the hungry obsession of any junkie.

When the drug is withheld, you promptly turn sick, crazy and depleted (not to mention resentful of the dealer who encouraged this addiction in the first place but who now refuses to pony up the good stuff anymore---despite the fact that you KNOW he has it hidden somewhere, goddamn it, because HE USED TO GIVE IT TO YOU FOR FREE).

Next stage finds you skinny and shaking in the corner, certain only that you would sell your soul or rob you neighbors just to have THAT THING one more time. Meanwhile, the object of your adoration has now become repulsed by you. He looks at you like you are someone he has never met before, much less someone he once loved with high passion. The irony is, you can hardly blame him. I mean, check yourself out. You're a pathetic mess, unrecognizable even to your own eyes.

So that's it. You have now reached infatuation's final destination---the complete and merciless devaluation of self.

The fact that I can even write calmly about this today is mighty evidence of time's healing powers.

We continued to have our bouts of fun and compatibility during the days, but at night, in his bed, I become the only survivor of a nuclear winter as he VISIBLY retreated from me, more every day, as though I were infectious....Most mornings, he would wake to find me sleeping fitfully on the floor beside his bed, huddled on a pile of bathroom towels, like a dog.

"What happened now?" he would ask---another man thoroughly exhausted by me.

...But then there emerged a pattern: I would separate from him, get my strength and confidence back, and then ( attracted as always by my strenth and confidence) his passion for me would rekindle...It HAD to work, didn't it? Reunited with fresh hopes, we'd share a few deliriously happy days together...but eventually he would retreat from me once more and I would cling to him (or I would cling to him and he would retreat---you never could figure out how it got triggered) and I'd end up destroyed all over again. And he'd end up gone.

He was catnip and kryptonite to me.

~elizabeth gilbert~
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xmas 07- "Tiffany"

On my flight to Bama, I met “Tiffany,” –a little southern bell from Ozark. I felt her staring at me while I read, waiting to get on the plane. Like all true southern women, Tiffany did not care that I was reading, nor did she get the hint that I was not interested in any type of conversation—verbal or non-verbal. When I refused to accept her very clever attention giving body language, she became inpatient and jumped right in. I could already tell that Tiffany is used to getting people’s attention.

“HAY, I liiiike your boots”

“Thanks”

“Your hair is so pretty too”

“Thanks”

Aaaaaaaaaand silence…but the stare continued…

Once aboard, it was open seating. I could hear Tiffany’s voice coming down the very long isle of the very large plane. I stuck my head as far as I could into my book. I had even kept my sunglasses on all morning long and in the terminal as to avoid any eye contact with anything breathing; specifically all the “Tiffanys” that would be flying from Kentucky into southern alabama.

She was talking Alabama football and cooing at every baby she passed. I had to admit she was a crowd pleaser. People enjoyed her genuinely honey sweet accent with a hint of redneck and her big smile that she used to tease and generously hand out compliments to anyone making eye contact with her.

What happens next is inevitable. I had already accepted it when she told me she liked my boots.

“Can IIII sit here? You don’t mind do you?”

“Of course not”

I try to turn back to my book giving every polite sign that this early flight was not one in which I wanted to hear about her boyfriend or step-baby or grandma or where she was going or whether I thought Alabama was going to have a good season…but clearly, this did not matter to her.

“So I brought a People magazine. I bet you like those. You look like you would like this stuff. You look like a movie star with your big glasses and boots and your fancy hair. Where are you from? Why in the world are you going to Alabama? You don’t look like you’re from Alabama”

really…really?? I just wanted to read my book. I purchased this book over a month ago. I’ve been waiting to be on vacation where I could read this book guilt free without any late paperwork being held over my head that I should be doing instead.

I dodged and answered in the most polite way I could.

“Why thank you. I do enjoy People magazine. I grew up in Alabama and my grandparents live here so I’m spending the holidays with them this year. I’m actually from Lexington.”

“Lexington, KY??? Why I have some family in Lexington…”

of course you do, I thought, they probably live right next door to me...

she flips through her magazine, gasping for air in the most dramatic inhale I have ever heard, aside from my grandmother when she hears a movie star say “God damn.”

“Look, riiiiight here…it’s your book you’re reading. They say it’s a top 10 best seller. What is it about? Should I read it? Do you like it so far?”

Okay, from sizing up Tiffany thus far, I would say this: Tiffany would not be able to handle this book without it shaking the very core of everything she believes about God and the world and sucky people. I say this only because…I am a recovering-Tiffany.

“You know, it’s a hard book to read. You probably don’t want to read it over Christmas. It’s kind of sad and talks about life in a different country and how hard it is.”

“Yeah, it’s hard enough in my own life sometimes. I don’t think I would want to read something like that.”

There was some ignorant truth in this statement. I admired her for it a bit or maybe I was just jealous that she allowed herself to find peace in her naivety.

Tiffany, who is 26 years old, began telling me her life story, literally, which would be too long to explain, but we conversed to the point of talking about everything in her life to “why a pretty girl like me isn’t married” and how she used to like Brittany Spears but she doesn’t anymore because of her poor morals and the fact that she doesn’t even claim she is a Christian these days and “can you believe her little sister is pregnant? Bless her little heart.”

....and so forth and so on until the plane hit the ground ubrubptly and in the midst of our conversation and Tiffany proclaimed, "Well that never get's old now does it. I hate to fly but I didn't want to say anything because I thought maybe you might be afraid to fly too...and well, two scared people in the same seat...well that could have been a whole heap of trouble" I couldn't have agreed with her more. Maybe Tiffany was much smarter than I gave her credit.

Once off the plane I couldn’t find my glasses and had to dig deep in my purse to search. Apparently, I had taken them off at some point in the conversation, sucked in by Tiffany’s contagious and entertaining spirit. I was exhausted…but not so much in a bad way.

The thing is…she totally won me over…pulled me out of a sleepy and emotionally recovering funk from the night before…she poured a little sunshine over me before giving me a big ole hug and asking me to tell me grandparents “merry Christmas” for her.

Maybe I was a little bit disappointed that I would never bump into her again. I am always very aware of those clear moments when you already miss the person you will never see again and that you will always remember even though you are still in their presense...it's like a present-nostalgia. We parted ways with two very mutual smiles and a bit more Christmas spirit in our souls.

I want to be more like Tiffany.

xmas 07 no christmas dreamland

The night before I was supposed to leave for home for the holidays, I couldn’t stomach the 13-hour drive I had planned, so I purchased a plane ticket, reserved a rental car, came home early, and tried to sleep. For the first time in months, I was very awake, very aware that I needed to sleep, and very aware of my emotions that I have kept under quite a tight reign lately.

One Gazillion thoughts were racing through my head, none of which I wanted to be there. Sleep came lightly but rest was non-existent. Somewhere in between deep breathing and visualizing myself on a beach, I drifted into dreamland where I proceeded to have an affair with my best friend’s husband. This sent me sitting straight up in bed, sweating, and heart pounding.

Next, I dreamt of my first love in college. A three-year relationship in which I enjoyed very much, still having butterflies when he walked into the room or ran onto the court until the day he walked out of my apartment with his things. I still think of him fondly. In my dream, I could not find my basketball shoes and I was frantic to find them or else coach refused to let me play. The dream setting was in my high school gym and I ran to the boy’s locker room to ask if anyone had seen them. Danny opens the door. My heart pounded. He was in a red uniform, dark hair and skin. He was holding a baby, his new baby. The baby was beautiful, just like him and his wife. I woke up gasping for air…I’m not sure why.

Next dream was about my father and mother. Hard times. No fun. The dream disturbed me so. When I awoke, I was crying, which is very odd if anyone has had this experience. My new philosophy is that the more you break down the easier it becomes…so if you have to--then do it fast. Lingering in that emotion can drown you in your own tears…so I cleared up immediately, and felt very proud of myself.

I asked God to let me sleep.

Lastly, I dreamt of my last heart wrenching love. It felt so very bizarre and real and it felt the exact same as it did a year ago without all the hurt and anger and annoyance and drama separating us over the last forever months. By this point in my sleep, I recognized it as a dream and fought to wake myself up to avoid this phony feeling.

I received a text that woke me up at 4:16am

And I am awake

Awake for two days straight actually, without the help of any drugs or caffeine.

Just soulful energy I suppose.

Merry Christmas to me.

I AM THANKFUL I AM THANKFUL I AM THANKFUL

If i could write...make sense of the whirlwind of life that has happened to me in the last 2 months...if i could explain the extent of growth and happiness that has happened in my life...i would do it...but to contextualize it into words has been incredibly challenging. There are nights i stay up half the night thinking and scribbling and thinking and scribbling with so much energy stirring in my mind and soul that i can't relax...and no matter how many times i have opened my journal to write...the same thing always bleeds through on the paper and then i am overwhelmed with the completion of my writing...that being...

"I AM THANKFUL...I AM THANKFUL...I AM THANKFUL"

but...there's soooo much more...there's so much more to say and write and express and sing out and dance to big and loudly...but i can't seem to get it on paper...so, i must trust that it's not ready... or i'm not ready to get it out...but I soo am...i am bursting with light...in the midst of the last few months of the shittiest and grueling happenings of my life in the last decade...I am revived and strengthened...I have no idea with whom or what to give this credit too...maybe God...maybe the universe... maybe myself...i can not say...but what i can say is....I AM THANKFUL....I AM THANKFUL..I AM THANKFUL...

healing and peace

below, the most powerful passages in which i have connected with so emotionally that i have literally sat alone in utter silence, for minutes/maybe hours...time seemed nonexistent... feeling the hole in my chest begin to repair and fill up again.

________________________________________________________________

I don't want anyone to talk to me. I can't tolerate anyone's face right now. I even manage to dodge Richard for a while but he finds me at dinner and sits down---brave man---in my black smoke of self-loathing.

"What's got you all wadded up?"

"Don't ask" I say, but then I start talking and telling him every bit of it concluding with, "And worst of all, I can't stop obsessing over him. I thought I was over it, but it's all coming up again."

He says, "Give it another six months, you'll feel better"

"I've already given it 12"

"Then give it another six more, Just keep throwing six months at it till it goes away. Stuff like this takes time...Listen, someday your gonna look back on this moment in your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing and you were in the best possible place in the world for it. In a beautiful place of worship, surrounded by grace. Take this time, every minute of it. Let things work themselves out."

"But I really loved him"

"Big deal. So you fell in love with someone. Don't you see what happened. This guy touched a place in your heart deeper than you thought you were capable of reaching. I mean you got zapped. But that love you felt, it's just the beginning. You just got a taste of love..."

"Please don't laugh at me now, but the reason I think it's so hard for me is that I seriously believed he was my soul mate."

"He probably was. Your problem is you don't understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that you are holding back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with your soul mate forever? Nah, too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave. And thank God for it. Your problem is, you just can't let this one go. It's over. His purpose was to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master and beat it. That was his job. Problem is, you can't except the relationship had a short shelf life.

"But I love him"

"So love him"

"But I miss him"

"So miss him. Send him so love and light every time you think about him, then drop it. You're just afraid to let go of the lasts bits of him because then you'll really be alone. And YOU are scared to death of what will happen if you are really alone. But here's what you gotta understand. If you clear all that space in your mind that you're using right now to obsess about this guy, you'll have a vacuum there, and open spot---a door in ---God will rush in---and fill you with more love than you ever dreamed. So stop using him to block that door. Let it go"

_________________________________________________________________


Most of humanity, the Buddha said, have eyes that are so caked shut with deception they will never see the truth, no matter who tries to tell them. A few others are so naturally clear-eyed and calm already that they need no instruction of assistance whatsoever. But then there are those whose eyes are just slightly caked with dust, and who might, with the help of the right master, be taught to see more clearly someday. The Buddha decided he would become a teacher for the benefit of that minority---"for those of little dust."

I clearly hope that I am one of these mid-level dust-caked people, but I don't know. I only know that I have been driven to find inner peace with methods that might seem a bit drastic for the general populace...

I don't know if I have much of a choice though. I have searched frantically for so many years and so many ways, and all these acquisitions and accomplishments--they run you down in the end. Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time, when pursued like a bandit---will behave like one; always remaining one county or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you're banging through with your newest search warrant, leaving only an ashtray to taunt you.

At some point, you have to stop because it wont. You have to admit that you can't catch it. That you're not supposed to catch it. At some point, you gotta let go, sit still, and allow contentment to come to you.

Letting go, of course, is a scary enterprise for those of us who believe that the world revolves only because it has a handle on the top of it which we personally turn, and that if we were to drop that handle for even a moment, well--that would be the end of the universe.

But try dropping it. This is the message I'm getting. Sit quietly for now and cease your relentless participation. Watch what happens. The birds do not crash dead out of the sky in mid-flight after all. The trees do not wither and die, the rivers do not run red with blood. Life continues to go on...why are you so sure that your micromanagement of every moment in this whole world is essential? Why don't you just let it be?

I hear this argument and it appeals to me. I believe in it, intellectually. I really do. But then I wonder--with all my restless yearning, with all my hyped-up fervor and with this stupidly hungry nature of mine--what should I do with my energy, instead?

That answer arrives, too:
Look for God. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.
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~Both passages: Eat, Pray, Love-Elizabeth Gilbert~