naglingnerk

love is a pretty tricky thing. first of all, it needs a much larger vocabulary. "love" is a weighted, frightening word that holds immeasurable meaning and implications beneath and between 4 measly letters. anne sexton wrote in her novella surfacing, "the Inuit have 150 words for snow because it is so important to them, we should have as many for love." the romantics, transcendentalists, and shakespeare all talked about the inadequacy of language, i think they had it right.

besides there not being enough words, there doesn't seem to be a plethora of correct information about it. fairy tales, walt disney, and romantic comedies have ruined it for everyone. but not in the way that you're thinking. it isn't that they got it wrong, or glamourized it beyond what anyone could ever hope to find- they just didn't finish the story. talk to anyone at the very beginning of a relationship and the fairy tales are true- find them 2 years into it or post break-up and meg ryan has ruined it for everyone. the movies and stories and kissing-scenes with revolving cameras and flashing lights only tell the first part, and the first part isn't love, it's just endorphins telling you what you want to hear.

but the truth about love is better than the fantasies. i'm not saying that the cinderella's made it seem better than it really is, but that they didn't give love enough credit. the real love comes much later, and it comes with much more fireworks than any first kiss.

love is believing that good will prevail when all signs point to no. love is accepting that things will not always be good, and they will not always be easy, or might never be easy, but that there are things more important than ease. love is allowing flaws, of yourself and of others, and not blaming them when things go wrong. it is not romance and flowers or a soundtrack playing as you dance in a parking lot. it's forgiving someone for wrecking your car, or revealing a deep secret to the last person that needed to hear it, or it is understanding that others, just like yourself, very often do not make sense.

love is honestly and completely holding yourself before someone else. it is also accepting that you might be a number 2 priority. i know that everyone says in love, you must always be the other person's number 1. this is not true. love is sacrificing things that you want and need to make sure than someone else gets what they want and need- but it is also caring about yourself enough to ask for what you believe you deserve when you believe you deserve it, no matter if you think it is rediculous or wrong. it is having what you want, but also wanting what you have.

love is also fighting. love is being angry and finding someone else to be logically insane. love is sometimes giving in when you know beyond all doubt that you are right. it can also be desperately hurting someone because you know it is what is right and what is good. this is most often love from your parents- which i have understood more and more each day that i am alive.

all of these things do not necessarily 'complete' you, but rather complete the way you see your world. it isn't that you had a hole to fill, but rather that everyone has a space that is meant to hold love. it can be shaped as a mother, or a husband, or a wife. it can be shaped like a sister, or a roommate, a best friend or a dog. we can survive without this space being full just as we can survive without ever eating chocolate- but things are so much better when it's there. the bad and the good, the lovely and the sorrowful, creates not really love, but rather a life. a life that neither person claims as their own, but that they are part of something more than themselves. something beautiful that makes you think, "oh. so this is what i needed. all this time."

i am not saying that the relationship i am in now has made me an expert. or that even the 30-some-odd before do. i am not saying that it will turn into wedding bells, or that it will not. i am not saying that it is perfect, in fact it is far from, and i am not saying that i have it all figured out. i am not saying it will last forever. i am not even saying that these things i've said are correct for everyone.

all i am saying is that i know that i am in love.
and that is what matters to me.

<3gen

all is full of love

some people think our past is something like a chain that holds us back from what we're running toward. that the things that have hurt us or frightened us are clinging to us, and they won't let us move forward. they're springing up from the ground and wrapping around our ankles like thick, evil roots, and pulling us into the ground so we keep running, but we just never move.

for a very long time i have ascribed to this belief. i have become frustrated to the point of tears at my inability to cut the threads of my past. sad stories, broken hearts, childhood memories that look like childhood abuse, and mean-spirited boys have been holding me back for such a long time. i start feeling like my wounds are visible and bleeding, like maybe my past is holding onto me so tightly that everyone else can see it.

but i've been thinking. what if it turns out not to be so much a chain, but more like a trail of breadcrumbs. is it really so bad to stay connected with your past? why is that viewed as wrong, anyway? i believe that if anyone tells you that they have left their past behind, they are either lying or didn't have anything interesting happen to them in their whole goddamn life. our past has all the little pieces that made us whole now, and if we didn't have it then we'd be these weird holey-people without all the spaces filled in. if it is a chain, what are we without it? a ship without an anchor? i think our past, all the ugly parts and everything, have to be connected to us or else we can't ever find our way back to the parts of our life that made it worth getting to where we are now.

in other words, i'm finished listening to the voices in my head. the voices that have always told me "it's not healthy if you cry when you're alone" and "you shouldn't always be in a relationship" and "you should never let things get to you that happened over a year ago." these are just things that my mother told me, or maybe my friend told me, or maybe i read it in a book or who knows where. the point is, who decided this? these strange "absolute truths" about life that i'm supposed to believe work for everyone. i'm different from every single other person in the whole, wide world. and i think i get my own set of rules.

i get sad if i'm alone late at night. for no reason, usually.
i cry at movies.
i still get bothered by things that happened in my past.
i like attention.
i like to be called pretty.
i like having a boyfriend.
i have sex.
i enjoy it.

and i am completely okay with all of these things.
unless of course, oprah said they were bad.

but she's on my side.

<3gen

say for me, love

i believe that my natural inclination to be frustratingly fickle might be one of my more charming qualities.

things are much better. my lindsey and my cooper will be home soon, which i believe might make my world brighten up considerably. there have been long talks, old pizza, cute little babies falling asleep in my lap and vanilla wafers during bambi. all of these things have made this difficult trial go a little easier.

it isn't over, if that's what you were thinking. the answer to every relationship problem is certainly not to end it. however, getting real is almost always necessary, and some real was certainly got. and he got it, and i got it, and honestly i think we'll be fine.

the fact is, that both of us, all of us, every last stinkin' one of us is always growing up, and always making mistakes, and the truth is that we need to remember the good when the bad comes by. that's what it's all about.

remember, the world is conspiring to shower you with blessings.
even when you can not tell.

<3gen

the weight of lies

the easiest way is very rarely the right way. in fact, it is probably safe to say that it never is.

i will be a big girl. that is my new resolution. revolution. whatever you want to call it. i will no longer lie down and let things happen. i will no longer wait for good things to get themselves done. i will no longer trust those who love me to never let me down. so many times i have used the metaphor that i am standing in the road waiting for the truck to hit me. this time, i'm moving out of the way.

so many times i set myself up for heartbreak. i lay my little tattered organ out on the table, tape it together best i can, and whisper into its poor, deadened ears "don't worry, this time you will be all right." and i ignore its protests, and i do not listen to the voices that yell at me to get out, save yourself, before it's too late. and low and behold, each time i find ymself crumbled yet again, and just as surprised as ever.

this time it will be different.

it will be hard. to walk away from something, to let an infected wound heal, to give myself time and space to be safe. but the truth is that i am no longer a child, and it is time that i stood up and took care of myself. i refuse to trust that things will fix themselves. and i refuse to stick around and watch them fall to ruin. i would rather have tears tonight and tears tomorrow, than tears two or ten yeras down the road when what i thought would happen eventually, finally does, while i hold myself together and think "i knew it. i knew it. i knew it."

i am deeply, deeply sorry if i have broken your heart.
but i am finally taking care of myself.

<3gen

~
The weight of lies will bring you down
And follow you to every town
Cause nothing happens here that doesn’t happen there
So when you run make sure you run
To something and not away from
Cause lies don’t need an aeroplane to chase you anywhere

goodbye my almost lover, goodbye my hopeless dream

that's sort of how i've felt about the past 6 months. with last semester transforming into one of the most dreadful academic experiences of my life, a new relationship that was beautiful but fraught with drama and outside problems, and a summer that turned into massive depression and financial worries, this year has been what looked like a great thing at first, and turned out not to be so much so.

it wasn't all bad. meeting ben has changed my life, i got invited into the cooper suite of wonders, lindsey and i got great things done with invisible children, and i did manage to pass with a 3.7 GPA. so i guess the year of inadequacy left me with a little dignity.

but like i said, it was what i thought was a great relationship, and it didn't turn out to be so. so sorry, last-half-of-2007, i'm going to have to break it off. you weren't the year i fell in love with, you changed, and let me say that it's not me, it's YOU.

i am ready for this new half to start. i've met a new, sexier, younger year 2007, and with a new apartment, a great schedule, and a new job, i'm hoping this year will kick all the ass that the past 6 months has left untouched. maybe my new second-half-of-2007 will see last-half-of-2007 trying to talk to me and he'll tell him to leave me alone. my new year will make sure that my last year won't bother me, won't make me feel bad, and will generally forget that i was ever with it.

so long, last-half-of-2007. hope you find a nice life.

basically, i'm ready to get started.

let's do this.

<3gen

nothing happens here that doesn't happen there

i don't want to be emotional and too personal here, because lately that has gotten me into trouble.

lately, i have made some mistakes. i have made several people angry. i feel completely alienated.

things haven't been good for me, guys. this summer has been one of the hardest.

things are just so hard right now.
so fucking hard.

<3gen

the japanese make the best pens

alabama has recently been running ads for their "click it or ticket" campaign on all the local radio stations. i am a full proponent of this campaign, seeing as how my current driving record truly lends itself to not only seatbelts, but probably the same sort of restraint mechanisms they use on jets and roller coasters. on these ads a stern voice comes on at the very end and asserts that "last year 1,058 people died in alabama in automobile accidents, 543 of them weren't wearing seatbelts."

while my manager and big brother steve drove me home from inventory one night, the ad came on the radio. steve exclaimed, "that's the dumbest commercial i've heard on the radio!"
i replied to him, "steve, it's important to wear your seatbelt, it's not dumb!"
"yeah, but those statisitcs are useless! if you wanna convince me to wear my seatbelt, gimme better than a 50/50 chance. tell me that out os 1,100 people, 1,000 of them weren't wearing their seatbelts. not almost half. that means if iw ear my seatbelt i still only have a 50/50 chance of living!"

i think this is a very valid point.

<3gen

p.s. i was listening in on a customer's conversation the other day as he gave advice over the phone to what i gathered was a young woman who had been fired from a job. he then traipsed into the schools supplies aisle, picked up a compass, and said into the phone, mid-sentence of hallmark advice, "i'm going to learn how to use a compass. i've decided." i think this is a lesson for all of us.

can't see past her scarlet letter, and we've never even met her

i'm feeling 'life' creep up on me faster than it ever has. i'm a little overhwhelmed, to be honest. i've realized recently that pretty soon i'm gonna have to start making grown-up decisions, and i don't know if i'm ready to. mine and ben's relationship has become something that i'm beginning to think might be the real thing, and we're going to have to start planning our lives to be grown ups together. ben will be a licensed student pastor by february, and by then we'll only have two semesters of college left. then he'll have grad school in atlanta, and i'll be becoming a teacher. as soon as i graduate, my little sister will be starting her senior year in highschool.

all this and i can't even drive a car, i don't have any money, i've only worked in retail, and i can't make pancakes.

i'm twenty years old. i never, in my whole life, thought i would be twenty years old.
good god.

what am i going to do?

<3gen

oxygen

click this and read this:

I wanna be better than oxygen
So you can breathe when you're drowning and weak in the knees
I wanna speak louder than Ritalin
For all the children who think that they've got a disease
I wanna be cooler than t.v.
For all the kids that are wondering what they are going to be
We can be stronger than bombs
If you're singing along and you know that you really believe
We can be richer than industry
As long as we know that there's things that we don't really need
We can speak louder than ignorance
Cause we speak in silence every time our eyes meet.

On and on, and on it goes
The world it just keeps spinning
Until i'm dizzy, time to breathe
So close my eyes and start again anew.

I wanna see through all the lies of society
To the reality, happiness is at stake
I wanna hold up my head with dignity
Proud of a life where to give means more than to take
I wan't to live beyond the modern mentality
Where paper is all that you're really taught to create
Do you remember the forgotten America?
Justice, equality, freedom to every race?
Just need to get past all the lies and hypocrisy
Make up and hair to the truth behind every face
That look around to all the people you see,
How many of them are happy and free?
I know it sounds like a dream
But it's the only thing that can get me to sleep at night
I know it's hard to believe
But it's easy to see that something here isn't right
I know the future looks dark
But it's there that the kids of today must carry the light.

If i'm afraid to catch a dream
I weave your baskets and i'll float them down the river stream
Each one i weave with words i speak to carry love to your relief.

how we spend our days is how we spend our lives

sometimes it's easy to start feeling dead. you think to yourself, "these things i'm doing, every day, they don't mean shit. i'm not changing anything. there are 6 billion people on this planet and i act like it's just me." and then you just feel dead.

this weekend, i didn't feel dead. i felt cold and out of breath and hungry and thirsty and sometimes that makes you feel your heart beat a little stronger. i was part of something bigger than me. i took part in being homeless for the homeless, and i did it with 60,000 other people. i wrote letters and worked with a team and slept in cardboard and felt for the first time in a long time that maybe, just maybe, the world was getting a little better because of me.

alot of people think that maybe they don't matter. that their vote doesn't count or their attendance isn't great enough to matter. but someone once said, "never doubt that a small group of dedicated individuals can change the world, indeed it is all that ever has." and the truth is, that if every one person thinks they don't matter, then they don't. but if each one thinks they do, we can do great things.

this weekend, we thought we mattered, and we did.

it was worth it. i was cold and didn't sleep and hungry and tired, but god it was worth it. and if you can wake up every day and know that what you're doing every day is worth it, then i think you may have found a dream.

someone else once said that the world is changed by those who show up.

and we did.

<3gen

watch at your own risk

storybooks

pssst.

i don't know if you noticed, but i went missing. there was this rabbit, see, and he was really late for something. and i followed him up a giant beanstalk and met with some flute-playing cattle and this one girl who could spin straw into gold. and there was this princess with really long hair and every night seven little men would climb up her blonde locks into the shoe where she lived and play songs that made the whole world fall asleep.

so that's where i've been.

some sort of asleep.

i know that i broke some things when i left, or maybe broke them before i left and left them that way. and i'm trying now, desperately in fact, to repair any and all of those things. if you were one of those things, i'm sorry, and i'll try not to go away again, i promise.

sometimes a girl gets lost.

good thing someone thought to leave breadcrumbs to lead me home.

<3gen

the last hour

the following has occured in the last hour:

-called my boyfriend and had a nice talk
-watched a video of a hamster carrying around a bag of animal crackers
-watched another video of the same hamster washing his face
-wondered who was filming this hamster so often
-decided i wish i had a hamster
-wondered why i didn't keep that cool mouse from ben's house
- ate a half a bag of cheddar potato chips
-channel surfed to the point where my fingers hurt
-watched House and pieces of Wayne's World
-decided tyra banks is just really creepy
-watched a video of a baby sloth and wished i had one
-tried to make plans with my family in montgomery
-got excited about introducing ben to my family in mongomery
-heard that my friend is getting sex letters from ex-boyfriends in prison
-wished two of my friends could be together
-"when i get out of prison"
-missed my boyfriend a little, but didn't want to call because i just did
-oh yay scrubs is on, gotta run

<3gen

wish me luck i know you think i'll need it

"today is a day of endless possibilities!"
she yells from inside her with all of her ability
tiny and bouncy and curly on top
and a light inside her that never gets turned off
sometimes she wakes me with all seven verses
of a little kid song that she never rehearses
because girls like her just don't need practice
in knowing ways to add to your brightness
or how to appreciate the everyday adventure
from shopping for lightbulbs to telling the future
and i got no problem in sayin' i'd be nothin
if i had to live without lindsey mullen

<3gen

that last bit of sanity

so, what could describe me right now?

hm...

miserable is a good word. exhausted, weak, drained. my head hurts, my teeth hurt, my back hurts, my stomach hurts. my fever goes from 102 to 98 in an hour, i shake from cold then i'm rolling in sweat from heat. the coughing rips at my chest and i feel like i'm gonna throw up but nothing happens except dry heaving. i haven't eaten anything in almost three days and probably won't be able to change that. according to my mother [who i trust more than my doctors because the doctors gave me orange juice, which my mother said not to drink, and it made me throw up, so fuck you doctorface] i can only eat chicken broth or clear liquids- nothing with acid in it. however, i don't have chicken broth, nor do i have a ride to get any, because god know i am not driving with tihs many prescription drugs in my system. not to mention i'm out of tissues. damnit.

so yeah, this sucks. and tomorrow is lindsey's birthday, and she gave me a birthday that was so amazing, and i feel like i can't do anything like that because i just don't have the energy or even the ability to barely write her name on a piece of paper. i feel so shitty about the whole thing. but i'm gonna do my best, and we'll see how it turns out.

my sister is coming to visit tomorrow, so that should make me feel better.

<3gen

if you still love me, please forgive me

i think perhaps childhood memories are better left there.

when i was in the third grade, i had a boyfriend named beau cannon. he was the coolest kid ever, and we always played power rangers with each other on the playground, he always rescued me. we would hang out at his house and watch cartoons an dplay in his back yard. he was a sweet kid and i gave him his first kiss [by third grade, i'd already passed that milestone]. but on the last day of school, he left me a gift on my desk, a nice hairclip for my hair, chich was past my hips back then. i went to find him outside to thank him, but i never saw him again. he moved away, and i never knew what happened to him.

ever since, i've looked for him. just in little places. i thought he had moved to mobile, so every once in a while i would google his name or ask someone if they knew him if they were from mobile. nothing spectacular. but since the advent of facebook, i broadened my search. i thought i could find all my old friends, stephanie denise from kindergarten, philip pender who got hot glue on my leg in fifth grade, omar awwad from seventh. i kept searching for beau, and low and behold i found him. we messaged back and forth, talking about power rangers, how he's engaged now and in the air force, and how our lives went from third grade into college.

now he's calling every day. i don't know how to react. i wanted to see how he was, make sure the memories were real, se eif he remembered me too. but now it seems that he doesn't have anyone to talk to, and he's calling me off the hook so that we can sit on the phone in silece. like lindsey says, there's no etiquette to how to deal with this sort of thing, re-meeting your third grade boyfriend, but i don't think this is the way to go. now it seems he's socially retarded, confused, marrying too early, and downright dumb.

the moral of the story, i suppose, is that i should have left it alone. i had great memories with beau, of playing pretend and him un-chaining me from evil's clutches during recess. we played connect four and card games, he gave me a power rangers valentine that i still have in a box at home. it was a bright spot in my childhood, a fun story to tell my friends. he was cute. i kissed him on the black top. we played kiss-chase.

but now, i tseems tainted. with the real beau. the 11-years-later beau. the beau that has nothing to say, and doesn't have any friends, and wants to talk about nothing. the beau who seems a little obsessive, a littel over-excited. a beau i wasn't planning on making time for. and now i feel like that little piece of my life growing up has a stain on it. i suppose i expected to find him and all of a sudden he would still be in third grade, and i would be too, and the past would crawl back soft and without discomfort.

i'm not going searching on facebook for any memories anymore, and i suggest none of you do either. it's lifting up a rock you lifted up as a child, but back then the things you found there were fun, and now they're just scary.

<3gen

he was part son part earth part daughter part sun

the girl was right.

the universe delivers exactly what you need exactly when you need it.

i believe that more and more every day.

and begin to replace "the universe" with "god".

maybe he knows what he's doing more than i give him credit for.

<3gen

without you, the ground thaws

i don't want to have to do this. i would give anything to be able to do things the same way i have always done them. to stay the girl i always was, even though now i'm a different girl than i've ever been. i'm trying so hard and i don't seem to be succeeding at much of anything.

it's time to make some sacrifices. to do things i don't want to do because they are the RIGHT things to do. i will not think about myself. i will not think about what i want. it's not that day anymore.

it's time to start breaking hearts.
i've gotten so good at it,
i can even break my own.

<3gen

there's a secret magic past world, that you only notice when you're looking back at it, and all i wanna do is turn around

i need something right now, or someone.

but god knows what it is.
if only i knew.

i feel so lonely.

i don't know what i want anyone to do about that at all. and i don't know if i want someone to hold me and keep me safe or to tell me they hate me and leave me alone.

i got in a wreck, in case anyone's curious. lindsey was driving, and we are both find save some minor knicks from broken glass. i'm a little overwhelmed, and overreacting to say the least.

i feel completely let down and drained of everything. i give up, completely. why even bother trying? i just feel so incredibly angry with myself and at the world and at god and at everything.

me: camel's back.
this: the straw.

okay. i'm broken. YOU CAN STOP NOW.

<3gen
i wish any of this made sense

snails see the benefits, the beauty in every inch

lately, things aren't going so well. i'm worried about a lot of things, and i seem preoccupied with trying desperately to fix something in me that seems to be broken. sometimes i feel like i'm losing it. thta something about me that was really bright and happy. i'm afraid it might be going out, little by little. sometimes i get so overwhelmed with living, i just have to sit and wait and feel nothing until i can move another inch.

and yet, i feel so happy. i listen to music and dance around, or read a good book and feel it seeping into me like sunlight tanning skin. i feel content with things, like maybe things being messed up are how they're supposed to be. and though i might be far from loving myself wholly and completely, i at least find myself a good enough person. i still want to see my friends, to touch them and to be around them, to remember childhoods and highschool and share good music and love poems from dark-covered anthologies on sale at the bookstore. i feel like there is so much going on i should be stressed and crying, but i'm not. i feel the weight of all i must do, but i am not letting it crush me.

is this a good thing? i'm not sure.

really, i just want things to get a little more figured out. i know it can't all be, but just a few parts. i want some answers. i need to do some math- and undo some too.

i'm not afraid of the word love.
but perhaps the word control.

<3gen