pretending o.k.

the disatisfaction makes my back itch. the blinds are half-closed and i don't care if i can't see if the sky is blue or not. my feet barely touch the floor, because my legs are so short. the calendar is about to end and i don't have another to replace it. a mug with the brown water and floating fragments of tea leaf sits on my desk, and i can't seem to keep this plant from dying a slow death.

feeling aimless.

feeling purposeless.

my feet are sweating in cheap plastic shoes. the "happy" paintings aren't happy.

the dissatisfaction makes my back and chest itch.

she told me she might never come back. she always said she would return. another love flown from my reach. i wish i had the guts to tell you all how much i needed you. how much i miss you. it wouldn't help, but i wish i could.

but GOD, i know you are there. i can't feel it, but i tell myself it. i am threatened by despondency, but YOU give me hope.

things will never turn out the way i think they should, but at least YOU know the end result.

i will never be satisfied by people. i will never be satisfied with people. they will always let me down.

nobody's fault but mine. always setting myself up for false hope. nobody's perfect, so why do i always set myself up?

false hope.

tears sting my eyes, but i clutch them back.

there is no pretense with YOU.

positive

why is taking the next step so difficult sometimes?

can't i just sit here and stare at the wall for awhile?

I just don't feel like moving is all, and if i move then i will have to face the mess i have made of things...

Why is it that i seem to hurt people so easily when i move around. if i just stuck to myself, in this little smelly corner, then maybe my social fumblings wouldn't be so obvious...

maybe i wouldn't have the opportunity to blurt out stupid, thoughtless, or hurtful things, as i seem prone to do lately.

heavy

"Each man's death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee."

Yes, it tolls for thee.

faded glory

Christmas... Has it lost it's mystery and beauty, carrying only the faded glory of childhood?
This is the first I’ve felt crippled by schedule, by adulthood, by commercialism, by laziness. I struggle internally to maintain that silly happy feeling I used to get when I listened to cheesy Christmas music, wrapped presents, decorated the tree and the lay on the carpet with only the tree lights on, just taking in the beauty.

Maybe it's that so much of me has changed. My surroundings have changed so drastically in the past year I sometimes can't even recognize my own life. Maybe it's that we don't have a Christmas tree. But, it's so expensive to buy, and so depressing to haul it out to the dumpster in January. And it’s only just us two. It would be a lot of work for just two people.

Maybe it's just what happens as you regress into adulthood. You wake up one Christmas and realize it no longer holds magic. It's merely another holiday in a long list of holidays which require shopping and wrapping and cleaning and decorating and cooking and more cleaning and unwrapping and more cleaning and then un-decorating and...

Well, the point is made.

But it doesn't change the sadness I feel that something has flown from me, that child-like supernatural excitement at the lights , the snow, smells and the gifts. It's disappeared and I want it back!

Maybe that's why people have kids. Then, the Christmas joy is given to them vicariously through their own children. I don't know.

Surely, it's my own choice. I can choose to take it all in. To take a moment to bask in the light of the Christmas tree. To go buy a toboggan, and make sure I do at least three runs. To sneak cookies when I think my mom isn't looking. To take special care in wrapping the presents I have bought, even though I wish I could be giving the world, I can't, so I must take time to give what I can.

Making a decision to steal that joy back from cynicism and pessimism would be one of the healthiest conscious decision I could make as an adult.

woe is me

The question you never want someone to ask you at work: "Um, do you know your skirt is ripped?"

The gently posed question, with ladylike hesitance, is met with my equally un-ladylike, "Well, is my butt showing?"

I mean, what else is there to say?

It's just one of those days. The winter wind is howling past my window, reminding me that it’s a crappy day for the car to be in the shop. It's a day that fulfills the Hollywood stereotype of the Canadian North; bitter, bone-freezing wind, stinging bits of blowing snow, drifts piling up along the roads.

It's one of those days of frustrations and inexplicable emotional anxiety. The smallest thing pushes me beyond keeping my emotions in check. Don't know if I am too tired, or what, but it seems as if lately I am unable to emotionally and mentally cope with my own schedule. My coworker teased me that I was pregnant. Oh, God forbid! No, no, the diagnosis is simply "emotional train-wreck".

I stare at my Happy paintings for awhile, colours and order and symmetry, visual therapy for the mind. Never mind that I have duct-taped the back of my skirt to make it through the day. I have to say I've done an excellent job of patching the huge rip in it. I can be quite handy with duct-tape. The real question is why I would have a roll of duct-tape in my desk.

So now I have unloaded. The Happy paintings inspire me to ignore the depressing swirl outside, the pounding headache is easing off with Ibuprofen, the duct-tape is holding, the mechanic called to say the car is only going to cost $250. And my husband called to say he loved me. What more could I ask for?

half-choked

Transportation completed, yet stalled
Hung somewhere, sometimes,
Mid-stride, mid-sentence, mid-ground
On fire in a bucket of ice
Metal-hard in new tender flesh
The old one, the new one,
Conception, death,
Re-birth, verve
Picking up where I should’ve left off
Taking out what I couldn’t before
Choking to death the former,
Tripping over the newer
Running, smashing down face-first
Bloodied, but purified.
Pull me up, Father…

stellar

The most fascinating thing I have seen in a long while... high resolution images of snowflakes, taken with an electron microscope unit. How intimate, Creation.

self oppression

It is snowing madly outside, driving in an eastward slant and drifting up on sidewalks and between cars. It makes me pleased to see the snow fall. These greyish days are more tolerable with this momentary purification of the world.

The dimness of the day, however, has no bearing on my levity. It would seem (entirely based on feelings, of course) that I have drawn away from this considerable depression that has been dragging at me since September-ish.

Unreliable as it may be, I had based much of my growth as a follower of Christ on feelings. The bitter loneliness and hopeless of the former had been transformed into the hopeful, buoyancy of the newer.

I thought I had bent my will sufficiently, and thereafter blessings had flowed. But good things do not translate into good feelings, I have discovered. These feelings of Christ's nearness, of mercy and cleansing, were not products of transformation, but of obedience. My faith does not translate into happiness just because God blesses. I am grateful, I am humbled to be given such things, but I cannot say with certainty, "these blessings bring happiness".

I found myself in a strange despondency, despite being surrounded by the evidence of His omnipotence and love, wondering daily what was wrong with me.

Then, the realization is made available even to my blindness... The cleansing never ends, and somehow I had begun to think it would. The beginnings were gut-wrenching, obvious, gone with old friends, old habits, old relationships. The new cleansing, a delicate refinement, still killing old habits but ones you never knew you had.

I had stopped listening, stopped obeying Jesus' direction to put everything aside. Holding onto unwillingness, pride, material wealth, unforgiveness; separated from Christ, arms full of garbage.

From Isaiah 59, God speaks of this distance between man and God as a result of our lack of repentance and disobedience.

Why, then, am I such a fool?

______________________________

Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity; you lips have spoken lies; your tongue mutters wickedness...

Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, and behold, darkness, and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.

We grope for the wall like the blind; we grope like those who have no eyes, we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among those in full vigor we are like dead men.

Fine wintry eves

Oh, fine winter nights with much festivity...

Rock stars, cheerleaders, afros, late night dancing

Back in the day, yo

Martin

Martin again

My second birthday

Drew and I

The little gentleman

Martin as a kid

i wake up every morning

So I wonder if I am too meticulous for this... if I will sit here, staring at the screen, agonizing over the details, putting so much thought into something so silly.

We shall see. I guess only I will know. Ha-ha! The power of the blog! I shall flaunt my creative control as I compose.

Hm. Well, already I find myself speechless. Staring at this photo of lovers in a tunnel. Captured: a moment of wordless intimacy. Love, as naive as a kid entering highschool, but the kind of love that makes your eyes sting. The kind the majority of people don't deserve, (That would be me, leading the majority.)

Yet, there I am, in a tunnel of love, a blessed one, terrified, absolutely catatonic with the awareness of the unfathomable future ahead of the young lovers.

Oh, for some Swedish countryside in June, to push away this grey day in November...

Jag älskar dej

O, stubborn creation, I'm enthralled.

what

a waste of time.

i mean

really.

now I must

do something productive.