Manifesto: You were made for something more

Hand holding, elbows brushing, hips swaying, feet stomping.

The world has come alive, awakening from it's winter, and I am awakening with it.

I can feel the revival stirring inside of my body, feel the rhythm as my heart beats in time, resounding against my ribcage

I want to be free

I don't know anyone but no one feels like a stranger

There is music, and laughter, and dancing, and the world feels like it has been lit on fire, and I want to be on fire too

I want to glow, emit the light that has been cooped up inside of me for so long

I want to shine like the sun as it peeks through the clouds, warming my shoulders, reminding me of miracles

The hot lemonade is warm on my tongue, but comfortably so. It tastes like honey, like promise and sweetness and hope. It is warmth and comfort.

We watch as people move like they were born solely to exist in this moment, like nothing else matters besides this awakening, and I can feel my heart awakening too

I am coming out of a long, cold winter

My bones are still rusty and don't quite remember how to dance but the echo of my heartbeat (sounds like a symphony) is a persistent partner, always inviting me to dance no matter how many times I step on his feet

She says my confidence is coming back, he says the light is returning to my eyes, and I feel it all as I am shedding extra layers

I want to experience what it means to be alive

I play a game of feeling everything, letting it be absorbed into my skin like it is medicine, letting it wash over me like the promise of hope

It makes me giddy

Reminding me what it's like to have a voice, to break free from the shackles of darkness, to grow my own set of wings

It reminds me of being seven, when I still fiercely held on to my light, when the whole world made me insanely happy

Ten years have passed, and I have become more jaded, hardened by the world, and yet I still feel that same awakening inside of me

the same hope and potential and possibility

this could be the start of something beautiful

And I want to fall in love with this moment, and these people, and myself and the birds and the trees and the hills and the sky and everything that seems to call my name, begging me, for this one moment, to be alive

I am poetess, story teller, belonging to the universe and the One who created it all, created to marvel and wonder and be fully alive in every moment while my heart is still beating like a drum inside of me

I was made to feel something more than the weight of the darkness as it wraps itself around my shoulders and calls itself warmth

I remember a few years ago sitting at a kitchen table in a house that didn't belong to me, writing on the back of a grocery list that I want to be enough for myself

I didn't know then that those words would become my cry as I wandered through these next few years of my life

I was, and am, searching for ways to be enough for myself

I am realizing now I don't have to do anything

I just have to exist

in wonder

in grace

in love

there is nothing I can do or not to do make myself enough, I just need to accept that I am

I was

And I always will be

I'm still learning what that means

I'm coming back to that place where I live in honesty, not belonging to another human being but myself, marveling at the world

Sometimes it's easy to write from this place

It's not so easy when you are lacking connection, when the pieces don't quite fit, when you spill your coffee and spend the afternoon in bed and stub your toe on your way out the door

I am learning this too is it's own kind of beautiful

If this is crazy than I want to be that. I want to fall in love with every moment of my one wild and beautiful life, I want to see heaven and God and the divine nature of it all in everything, I want to finally learn what it means to embrace my enough-ness and be free

I want to use these wings to fly

Life keeps moving on

It's our first night in the new place and despite the exhaustion sinking into my bones, I feel the need to write this down.
"Write this down!" A voice screams at me "Don't forget this!"
As I was packing my things, I saw how many useless pieces I had held on to - clothes I had outgrown and half empty bottles of lotion and things long past their useful time. But I think my writing is also like that. It's a place where I keep all of these things, just in case I need them again one day.
Sitting here I feel nostalgic. I feel unsettled. This room is fresh, with none of my memories hanging on the walls. All my things are here, but these walls haven't seen my tears, or seen my lovesick smile. Maybe I'm nostalgic more for the memories those other walls held than the actual room itself.
Moving always feels like casting aside, getting rid of things and starting over with a blank slate. And there's always a slight sense of panic. Because what if I forget what happened in the old room? What if I forget the things that happened and how it changed me? What if, without that physical, concrete reminder, I forget?
It takes me a while to remember that I still have the memories, tucked away somewhere in the back of my mind. I still have this evidence in every word that I write in an attempt to not forget this.
I don't know if I could forget this, even if I tried. I think there is some part of your body that remembers, even if you try to forget.
At a certain point, I think, you're just lugging around things that don't even really belong to you anymore.
Like this is my dad's shirt from 27 years ago or this tendency to keep moving and never let anything sit for a while belongs to my mother.
And you don't know why you keep dragging it along behind you, you just do
Sami sent me this email today, after I sent her one about how thinking of my other empty room made me want to cry, about how this new room is like a bookshelf. It's a blank canvas, a fresh start. And even though the bookshelf is new, all my books are still there.
All the memories I made before this are still in this body somewhere, and all the memories I make after this will be stored right alongside the old ones, until they are touching hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder.
Just because the physical space changes doesn't mean the things in it do.
But there is still this part of me that says "No, I need that! This defines me, this keeps me in place."
It's sort of like an anchor. If I have that half empty bottle of lotion and that scarf someone (I don't know who) gave me as a gift a few years ago, I won't lose my place. I can stay centered and I know who I am.
You think with as many times as I've done this, it would be easier. But it doesn't get easier. Every single time I attempt to pack my life into boxes and throw things out there is a part of me that still thinks my memories are in these tangible objects.
And so, physically and mentally and emotionally, I end up sticking my things into boxes because I'm too afraid to let them go.
I've never been really good at letting go. Not of relationships that have become toxic, not of habits that have become harmful, not of patterns I have been carrying around from generations past. Not of my dad's shirt from 27 years ago or that skirt I wore on that one day when I was happy. I stick everything into a suitcase and drag it around behind me, convinced by holding on to these things I won't have to let go, and then I can maintain my center and my place and my memories.
It happens though, every time we move. Every time a big life change hits. It's time to let go, scheduled right there in the calendar between moving day and Sunday.
Sometimes your arms just get heavy from carrying all this stuff you hold on to because you think it makes you matter and you think it will keep the memories from slipping away.
They won't slip away.
They're right here, tucked inside of you like a treasure chest.
When it comes time to let go, it's a little sad. The nostalgia is overwhelming. But I've been told it's worth it.


inspired by this, and this

This is not a love story

I've never been good at writing love stories.
Mostly because I don't know how to be in love.
I've done it before. I've loved. Some may say I love too much. I love passionately and quickly and fiercely and with the awkward clumsiness of a newborn foal.
I love until it hurts too much and the feelings threaten to crack my heart wide open.
I love until I feel like a fish beneath frozen ice.
See, it's all poetry and stars and breathtaking moments. Until it isn't.
I love like a lightning storm.
So no, I've never been good at writing love stories because I never can finish them.
I have this folder on my desktop for unfinished love stories.
It's about how every time I'm lonely, or nostalgic, I send letters to poets I've never met because maybe their words feel like a supernova exploding in their veins too.
It's about how I fall in love with moments, bits and pieces of people. Her eyes, the way he looked when he held her hand, the way he smelled.
It's about the little bird who has built a nest inside of the cage composed of my ribs and sometimes I can feel him, fluttering. His wings beat against my bone and I know he wants to get out and taste sunshine as badly as I do.
Its about how I am not a girl who is easily loved.
I've been told that before.
I'm a mosaic of broken glass, jagged edges and rough sides. I feel too much and I love too much and I carry stories that don't belong to me inside of my body because I don't know how not to.
I collect moments. I drink my coffee black.
I tried it with cream once and it tasted too easy, too simple.
I am always pulling at my nails and I can never manage to keep my room clean and I write on sticky notes and find them in places I'd never expect and chances are if I know you I'll probably fall in love with you.
At least part of you.
I'll love you until the supernova explodes and its too much work to pick up the broken pieces and I have this fear of getting hurt that makes me tread carefully, treating relationships like land mines.
Maybe I wasn't made for staying.
Maybe there's always been this part of me that's meant for leaving.
Maybe there's always been this part of me that never knew how to write a love story.

A semi-autobiography

    i.            Words flow from me like a river. Warm in my belly they sit like soup. Gently, with butterfly like fingers, like soft, flowing ribbons they caress my insides. “Speak your truth,” They whisper to me. I barely have the ears to listen.  Like a river it flows from me, pain like a white, radiant light comes from my spine, my shoulders, and my hips. This pain transforms. It spins me like a spider weaving its web, stitching into me fibers of silver and gold. Stories balance precariously on my tongue and I soak up information, lapping it up like a dog, drinking it in like a traveler in the desert thirsty for a cool drink. Transformed, spinning in this web, I shift and change. Truths are spoken and tiny hands pick up each heel, pressing me onward. Their belief, this radiant form of love, it changes me. With a gentle spirit I open myself upwards to the sun, letting the rays and all their glory penetrate my very being. The babbling brook whispers my name and her laughter catches the wind. I have folded myself into this universe, wrapped myself in the golden rays of the truth. Wrapped in sunlight and silk from the spider’s web, I walk forward.

 

   ii.             The world is not my playground.  Thoughts spiral down, around, thoughts of love and loss and forever. I thought I knew what these things meant, once. But as it would seem, I am an impostor, lying in my own skin. I do not know the meaning of these delicately bound objects. Who does know, I wonder, as I watch the robin build his nest for the coming summer. I feel the sun on my shoulders, the grass under my bare feet. I have it hanging on my wall: love, and yet I am bereft to find the meaning. Because once I thought I loved you, and you were afraid and fled. And I understand, my darling. And yet I dreamt of losing you and I fought against time and space to save you. Your brow is knit tight, your lips pursed closed, and I wonder at your thoughts. I’d throw a penny in every wishing well for you to tell me your utmost desires. What is it that keeps you up all night? What is it that makes your heart sing? What is it, my love? What is it that makes you angry and what makes you at peace? But, like the robin, you are just beyond my reach. And so I will sit in silence, watching, marveling at the beauty that you are. I will watch as you fly away. And I will hope for the day you will come back to my tender garden. I will wait for the day when the beauty of a robin will finally be enough for my wandering heart.

 

  iii.            The memory of you is stored there. Right there, in the pocket of empty space running up my spine, from my tailbone into my shoulders. Some days I scarcely notice the ache from the absence of you. Other days it is all I can think of. The missing is not so much pain, not anymore. It isn’t joy either. I would say it is light grey, like the sun shining through the clouds right before they are about to break after a rainstorm. The world smells fresh and the earth is damp and if I sink my toes into it long enough, I can feel you in the rain. It is stillness. The missing of you is stillness. It isn’t a throbbing absence, not pulsating inside of me. It is more like this empty pocket of space, just there. Most days it doesn’t hurt. It just feels empty. And on those days I’ll put on your sweater, stand on the back porch and wait for rain.

 

     iv.            Soon this space will be too small. I push against the edges of this old box. Like toes in shoes, I am pressed up against the edges. I shift and make myself more comfortable in this space which I am rapidly outgrowing. I feel the tension from being pressed tight, no room to expand. So I must gain courage. I must walk in love, in truth. I must be willing to lose sight of the shore, becoming vulnerable and taking risks. It is there I will taste healing, savoring the taste of solace on my tongue, drinking in marvelous beauty, open to embracing creativity and my truth. With one final push this old rowboat is out to sea. My hands shake as I grip the oars, pushing myself farther and farther away from the shore with each stroke.
Attraversiamo – Let’s cross over.

 

v.            Something always brings me back to you. Like tangles in my hair and the blue heart drawn on the inside of my favorite pair of jeans. It’s a touch stone, I think. It’s like the universe holds it breath in anticipation for this moment, the moment I’ll come back. Because I always do. I’m a gypsy at heart but I can never stay gone for long. I tell myself I’m really leaving this time but we both know it’s a lie. I’m not capable of leaving. I will always come back, floating in on the wind. It’s because you’re a touch stone. It’s because, hard as I try, I can never look into my eyes without seeing the reflection of yours.

 

vi.            And so I wait. For love, for peace, for reunion, for words that last longer than a few moments, for a place my body knows how to stay. I build myself into people. There’s a piece of me there, right under your left ear, and that person has a tiny piece on their big toe. I toss my heart like ashes in the wind and hoping where they fall will be somewhere safe. That’s why I spend so much time running, I think. I’m trying to find myself. I’ve forgotten that here already holds the biggest piece of me.

 

vii.            I ask my empty hands what it all means. I ask myself what it means to love, to let go. I feel the empty space as I sit and I wonder how much longer I will feel the absence like the lack of fluid around my spinal column. I ask them what it  means. I ask them if this time I’m really letting go.

 

viii.            My hands have yet to write the answer.

I'm the girl who always says goodbye but never knows how to leave

I know I'm always writing so you think I'm good with words but I can hardly express how I feel.
There's so much going on in this head of mine, so much I wish I knew but don't.
I wish I knew where I was going next, but I have no idea. if I did I wouldn't be hiding behind so many paperbacks and staring at so many blank walls, hovering in door ways, coming from no where and headed no where.
I'm the girl who always says goodbye but never knows how to leave.
Tonight is one of those nights when I wonder if I'll ever be able to write the things I want to, if I'll ever be able to figure out this thing they call life, if I'll ever be able to stop wandering long enough to get myself un-lost.
I feel like I can only repeat the words other people say, grasping at sentances and paragraphs with cold fingers, trying to find some wisdom in the words of others.
So this is me, trying to get it right this time.

I have solar powered confidence and a battery operated smile. My hobbies include editing my life's story, hiding behind metaphors and trying to convince my shadow that I'm someone worth following. You know, I don't know much, but I do know this: I know that Heaven is full of music. And I know that God - He listens to my heartbeat on His IPod. It reminds Him that we've still got work to do.

Here

                                                          Here: What a place to be. We're here now, in this yellow house. We're here now, in this place that doesn't quite feel like home yet. We're here now, in this place that, after the business of the day is done, is quiet, unfamiliar. We're here now, in this place We're here now, surrounded by unfamilar sounds and smells and sights. We're here now, in this place that, as the days pass, we will call home. We're here now, walking the line between leaving and staying. We're here now, with a trailer full of boxes and a heart full of hopes.
Here: What a place to be.

Exams and Gypsy's

I'm knee deep in midterms. It's an average occurance in the life of a high schooler, I guess, but I have to think there's a better way to test a student's knowledge on the course then to sit them down in a room, hand them a stack of papers full of questions and tell them they only have 2 and a half hours (In my case anyway) to complete this exam, and this test will make up 30% of their final grade. It's a nerve wracking experience. I'm done 2 out of 3 exams (My last one is tomorrow) and passed them both, which is great. The 2 I've already submitted, they were submitted through a program called quizstar which grades it immediatly. So I entered my answers, paced the floor, took a deep breath, put my finger on the submit button but didn't press it until I was turned away from the computer. I pressed submit, walked away, then came back. My heart was racing and I was so nervous and then... the moment of truth. I passed both exams, but the nervous feeling I experienced before I pressed submit is something I don't really like.

In other news, our house sold. Yep, we're moving again. I can go back in my blog history and find the entry in which I wrote about our coming to THIS house. But now we're moving again, at least that's how it's looking. I almost feel like somebody should start calling me a gypsy because we've moved every 2 years since I was born. Maybe that's a good thing, because for all my life I've been forced to think of home as people, not as a place.

One more thing before my study fried brain decides to shut down. Remember a while ago when I posted that video of the girl after her endoscopy? (If not, you can check it out here.) That girl has a blog called chronicles of the chronically ill, which I've been following, and loving. She takes the words right out of my mouth when it comes to describing the life of someone with a chronic illness. As most of you probably know by now, I love sharing links to posts that inspire me, make me think or just posts that I love. So if you have time, check out this post.