2010

2010 I am simply glad to see you over. You taught me a lot and for that I thank you but honestly some of it I could have done without. If I had to sum my year up it would be "Ein Unglück kommt selten allein" which in English means "One disaster rarely comes alone."

Sadness and heartache I leave you behind. Being so insecure and shy... I hope to say goodbye to you soon too.

I am optimistic about 2011, strangely I feel a lot like I did a few years ago. I have a feeling this year will bring about changes. Changes in me and around me. Growth throughout. I have no resolutions to report, I just want this year to be better than the last.

Invisible Me

Do you ever have those days where you just feel invisible? A day that you could be talking to people and then you realize they aren't listening. Maybe someone speaks over you in order for this realization to take place... maybe you just know.

Most days I have wanted to feel invisible. I have spent most of my life as a wallflower so the idea of being invisible is usually like cuddling up with a soft warm blanket on a cold night. Comfortable. But today it was anything but. My first post commented on my state of restlessness... maybe this is part of that, part of what was previously unnamed. I am shy, easily embarrassed and by no means outspoken but when I speak I would like to know that someone is listening.

I have no goal to ever be the center of attention but sometimes being noticed or appreciated and knowing I have made a difference by my actions would be nice. I am here. I am evolving. And through that change I want to be seen. To be heard. To be felt.

~ And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
–Anaïs Nin ~

I think that is where I am. This pain and restlessness is pushing me to bloom. To want more for myself and to validate the wants I have. So my goal for this coming new year is just that.

scrambled words

I sit here with no real purpose to this posting ... scrambled words running through my head. That's what my time has been like ... scrambled words running through my head. I haven't sat down and watched a movie for a while, I should try it again. Reading has been an escape for me ... the words on the page distract from the words in my head.

Some of my friends they say they are worried about me... I have lost too much weight (ha) ... I seem so down ... they haven't heard me say some of the not so flattering things about myself before now. I've said them, I've always said them ... maybe they just weren't heard before because they were said behind a smile? Am I sad, yes. I have reasons to be sad. I am allowed to be sad. I am a strong woman, I am sad but I am okay. So do I need to see a professional, do I need to go to counseling, ha again! No. I have my blog. Welcome to my couch. Maybe this will be read by one or a hundred people, maybe none. But the scrambled words are running from my head through my body and out my newly shortened and painted fingernails. And although sadness is in me I feel a bit of contentment as well. I know that the valleys seem so deep because the mountains are so big. My mountain climbing days are far from over.

Steel & Water Don't Mix

My version went a little different than the scene which is like how the book describes it.
My version wasn't in person and went like this...

Boy: Have you ever been Cubed?
Girl: Cubed?
Boy: It's shrink's way of defining your character...it was made popular by the movie Serendipity. I'll ask you a series of questions, and you simply answer with the first thought that honestly comes to mind.
Girl: Seen the movie... love the word... but no
Boy: You wanna try it?
Girl: I suppose, on one condition
Boy: What's that?
Girl: You answer the same questions?
Boy: Deal... Now imagine a cube. Any cube, made of anything... Tell me the first thing that came to your mind...what color was it, what was it made of and what size was it?
Girl: an ice cube, various shades of blue ... medium in size but melting
Boy: Very good... picture you with it... where are you in relation to it?
Girl: Not far but not close enough to touch either
Boy: Now picture the environment around you and the cube... describe it... i.e. the season, temperature, shade of light, indoors or out.
Girl: outside, its warm, I see light but through trees, lots of trees its humid and I hear birds and a waterfall
Boy: Nice, now... imagine an equine creature...What kind is it, and where is it in relation to yourself and your cube?
Girl: A black stallion, it's in the trees not close
Boy: Okay, I need a minute to review ... hmm you're quite interesting
Girl: uh oh what does that mean?
Boy: Your cube is your heart
Girl: Ice cold... how nice
Boy: Yours is... well not so much emphasis on the temperature, but the current state... It's melting and shades of blue. The funny thing is that it's out of your reach, but not far. The environment is your current state of being... or the place you are in your life... You described a pleasant place with peaceful surroundings. So all in all it's quite interesting.
Girl: And this equine creature?
Boy: UHM, That's your current romantic interest. So you should probably know it's not fair for me to answer these as I know what it all means. I can tell you, but you wouldn't believe my answers... but I'll have you know, I cubed myself before I asked you if you'd ever been cubed... It was my way of coming to terms with everything going through my head.
Girl: Well I am still curious enough to ask.
Boy: My cube is very large... like house size. It's made from stainless steel, and has a man size door on one side. I am sitting on top of it. The environment is warm, the sun is slowly setting and the cube rests firmly in a grassy field surrounded by forests. The equine creature is Pegasus, and it's sitting perched near me on top. Good enough?
Girl: Is there more?
Boy: Not exactly...I've just never been able to picture an equine creature in the past. Let alone one like Pegasus, look it up on wikipedia... pay close attention to the notion of the springs.

And just like that the image stuck in the girl's head. Not the girl's cube, the melting ice cube of a heart. No... this house sized stainless steel structure. This cube with a man sized door on the side. The boy sat atop his legs over the side looking down over the edge while the sun set in the trees behind. With a magical creature, a white winged horse, Pegasus, behind him just over his left shoulder.

It was with her from that moment on, closing her eyes she can still see it. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt such inspiration. Always being an artist and always doing something creative but never before did something linger for so long. So she decided this image wasn't her's to create, it was his. The boy with the stainless steel heart, the boy who had the same material stamped with all his vital information draped around his neck. Pencil went to paper and paint soon followed. For months the image never wavered. Boy and girl chatted almost daily and often for hours at a time. Sometimes a week would go by when the girl didn't paint but the catalyst remained. Boy would go off and do his job and girl would miss those chats. Boy would come back and the chats would resume. He would tell girl how much she was missed and how thinking of her helped him get through. How boy had never missed anyone like that before and how much he liked girl. Girl painted more.

Then one day, many months after it all started, the chats were no more, the boy was gone. Boy didn't go off to do his job, boy just fell silent to girl. Girl was confused and tried to talk to boy... but boy was done with girl. And somehow girl although hurt by this was not surprised.

The image still coming to life on paper now felt cold as the stainless steel of the boy's heart. The girl's ice heart that had been melting began to refreeze. Unfinished as it was the girl could not stand to look at the painting anymore. She couldn't throw it away, many hours over months went into this, but now girl felt nothing but pain from it. The brilliant colors of the sunset against the dark of the trees, in the middle of a grassy field sat the stainless steel box. A door on the left side, rivets holding it all together. And on top sat a boy looking over, down at the door below, behind him just a pencil sketch of the winged horse. Girl wrapped the painting in plastic and sent it to boy. A letter saying it is left as we are left ... unfinished, the image was never mine, always yours. I never had any intention to keep it, only make it's partner ... the cube of ice, melting. It will take many more hours to finish so do with it what you want. Only send it back if we, like the painting, aren't finished.

Boy who was far away received the painting some weeks later. What he did with it is unknown. Girl can't even imagine what happened to it, she can only guess it went in the same place his birthday present went, where his broken promises went. But it is probably best she not know. The silence persists (again the girl is not surprised) but girl can only wonder, did the water rust the stainless steel?

Girl would like to thank boy, for making her begin to believe again, for that feeling when a heart that has been quiet for so long starts to slowly beat and come back to life. For being the first to call her gorgeous and tell her that her brown eyes are anything but boring. Girl would like to tell boy that the lies were never necessary. The obvious ones and the ones he has no idea she is aware of, like how his rank was of no matter to her. That she knows it wasn't all a lie which has confused her more. To ask why, and other questions she knows will never be answered. To tell boy that she misses the friendship she thought they had. And that even after all of it she wants the boy to be okay because she knows he has a lot of healing to do. Lastly, to let the boy know her heart was never ice, not really. She knows the ice was only there to protect her from boys like him.

But that boy will never know these things because this girl was so easily disregarded. But boy, with your soldier's honor, your fear for nothing and the standard you want your daughter to live up too, you are simply a coward.

Lesson 1: Death

I lost my father to cancer in 2004. It's been over six years and I can honestly say it could have been yesterday. He was truly the first person I lost to death's ugliness and he is the only loss I have felt so close to home. Since my fathers passing death has done horrible things to me. It disrupts my psyche in such a profound way it takes me back to that time. I don't have to even know this person who has passed, just knowing of them. Knowing how much they meant to someone I care about can utterly bring me to my knees. Empathy, isn't that what they call it? I may not have been blessed with much but empathy, I have in spades.

Death makes no sense in my tiny little head. The idea that someone who has here is just gone. Regardless of age or illness or circumstance. I am not able to comprehend it. To this day I still say things to the air for my Dad to hear. I go to the cemetery and talk to him. I often find myself looking at the front door when I leave Momma's because he was always there, waving me off. And I long to hear his voice call me any one of my silly nicknames once more. I am lucky enough to have recordings of his fabulous voice and I treasure them. One, recorded after he had become ill, is wishing everyone Happy Holidays, I tear up every time I hear it because he loved the holidays.

He was sick for a long time, but he was here longer than the Dr.'s said he would be. He was a fighter, that was my Dad. I admitted to few around me how sick he was, they knew he had cancer, that was all. I put a smile on my face and never let it fail. I was good at this, when I was around others. I went on with my days as though if I thought he would be better... he would than get better. I had a 45 minute drive to work, and every night the day of smiles started to come crashing around me, I let them. And for months I cried on those drives, cried the tears I wouldn't let anyone else see because I needed to be strong. I yelled at the radio and screamed with the song and got it all out in time to wipe the tears away and go to him.

One Saturday my brother and I went home, Mom said "it isn't good go talk to him" Dad preceded to tell us he loved us, to love one another, and care for one another. He told my brother to take care of his family, for his wife to take care of him. He told me the same. Both Mom and my brother told him it was okay, he could go, they understood. I stood there angry. How dare you tell him its okay to leave us, he isn't allowed I thought to myself. Internally I was screaming at them how he wasn't to go anywhere, his time was not done. He was still needed, I still needed him. And he didn't leave me...not that Saturday. I stayed home from work on Monday worried that I would not be there if I was needed. I felt useless but I was there. I went to work on Tuesday, a co-worker said I was making excuses to be young and dumb, saying that I just didn't want to be at work. That day I said it, I said it to only one person but the cat was out of the bag. "It's not good.. it's only a matter of time, I see that now" Within 8 hours of saying that he was gone. And I was numb. I know part of me died that day. The part that gets excited over Christmas and cares about my birthday. I had to be strong still, on the outside, but inside I couldn't think.

I go back there to that place. My most recent visit rocked me to my core. In this land of social networking and open forums word travels fast. It's not a matter of a phone call anymore, its a blog post or a status update. And from there the dam breaks. The flood of condolences rushes in on the pages of family members, or the lost. And our nature suddenly releases us to say things in death that in life was never said, why? That is what confounded me recently. If I were to leave this earth tomorrow, what would go on my wall? What would be written to me, to my mother, to my daughter, to my brother and to my friends? Have I lived the life of impact I wanted to? Have I told those around me how much they mean to me, and do they know how they helped shape and molded me into who I am?  Can I ask myself the same for each of my loved ones?

Death is tragedy regardless of circumstance. I call it a tragedy, not tragic, because for those in the midst of it dark grips reality doesn't seem real. An unearthly nightmare plays out in slow motion. It's been said it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a village to mourn too. To surround yourself with memories of all the good times, to sing together and to learn to laugh again.

Restless Part I

Lately I have felt restless. No real reason, at least no clear one at this point. Change is coming I can feel it in my bones. I only hope I am ready for whatever this change is, be it good or be it my next lesson. Isn't that what everyday really is? A Lesson. A lesson in life, in love, in loss, in hope, in dreams, in failing, in learning, and sometimes the lesson is as simple as stopping to digest and than breathing again.

I don't know where this is going, or why I feel the need to write it. I am not one who is good with words. I am not one who has really discovered anything she is good at. I am mediocre in most ways, a mere average human at best. Purely ordinary to look at by this worlds standards. And I am restless.

I am an unemployed graphic designer, going back to college but with an undeclared major. Yes, I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. I am imaginative and creative but those fields aren't in high demand today. I love to read, to learn, to listen to music. If I have passions outside my family and friends those are them.

Reading is my escape to the places I can not physically travel to at the moment, it allowed me to become someone else in some of my darkest days. Learning is an everyday thing for me, lately it's been more about self discovery than about what is in any of my textbooks. Music, ahh sweet music. Music is my air, it is pure to me and clean always there telling me what I want to hear allowing me to feel whatever emotion I need to let out at the moment. Music has never let me down, lied to me, or broken my heart.

I recently described myself as an unfinished piece of art, a canvas with much work left to do. I still think of myself that way .. I suppose I always will.