Freedom

I live again. I breathe and feel the sweet freedom of love passed and love renewed. It’s exhilarating and thrilling. It compels us to be happy and quells the fear of loneliness. It gives us reason to get up in the mornings and entertains our days with dreams of what seems to be reality.

Love

What is it that binds us so completely to another human being? Love. That’s always the answer, isn’t it? The flowered truth of an emotion that so wholly encompasses our entire being, our reason for living, breathing. And yet, in all it’s splendor, love brings with it the chilling twinge of loneliness and the bitter crumbs of broken dreams. But we want it, live for it, dream of it, breathe for it, hope in the deep chambers and corners of our hearts that one day it will all be whole and perfect again. Effortlessly it influences us so intensely we know we cannot function without it. And why would we ever choose to, because despite those moments of sudden fear love brings with it the experiences we were meant to have. In a friend, love opens up and provides the stage we can dance across and know that no matter what we do we have a captive audience who will laugh or cry again and again without losing interest because they've "seen this one before."

The Power of Music

I was told once...actually, I think I might have just seen it on Fresh Prince, but either way it's an interesting idea, that you know you're in love when all the songs on the radio start making sense. I'm not saying that I'm in love by any means but I certainly can identify with the consuming power of music and it's ability to express what you haven't found words for yet. I think it works with all forms of love, even the ones you find you have to let go. These are some of my most recent re-discoveries:

Goodbye to You

Of all the things I've believe in, I just want to get it over with

Tears form behind my eyes, but I do not cry

Counting the days that pass me by.

I've been searching deep down in my soul, words that I'm hearing are starting to get old

It feels like I'm starting all over again, the last four months were just pretend...

And I said,

Goodbye to you, goodbye to everything I thought I knew.

You were the one I loved, the one thing that I tried to hold on to...

The one thing that I tried to hold on to...

I still get lost in your eyes, and it seems that I can't live a day without you

Closing my eyes and you chase my thoughts away to a place where I am blinded by the light,

But it's not right...

And it hurts to want everything and nothing at the same time.

I want what's yours and I want what's mine,

I want you...but I'm not giving in this time.

Goodbye to you, goodbye to everything I thought I knew.

You were the one I loved, the one thing that I tried to hold on to...

The one thing that I tried to hold on to...

And when the stars fall I will lie awake.

You're my shooting star...

Walk Away

Oh no- here comes that sun again.

That means another day without you my friend.

And it hurts me to look into the mirror at myself.

And it hurts even more to have to be with somebody else.

And it's so hard to do and so easy to say,

But sometimes-sometimes you just have to walk away...walk away.

With so many people to love in my life, why do I worry about one?

But you put the happy in my ness, you put the good times into my fun.

And it's so hard to do and so easy to say.

Sometimes-sometimes you just have to walk away, walk away and head for the door.

We've tried the goodbye so many days.

We walk in the same direction so we could never stray.

They say if you love somebody then you have got to set them free,

But I would rather be locked to you than live in this pain and misery.

They say time will make all this go away,

But it's time that has taken my tomorrows and turned them into yesterdays.

And once again that rising sun is droppin' on down

And once again, you my friend, are nowhere to be found.

And it's so hard to do and so easy to say.

But sometimes-sometimes you just have to walk away,

Walk away and head for the door.

You just walk away, walk away, walk away.

You just walk away, walk on, turn, and head for the door.

Just Another Lonely Day

Yes indeed, I'm alone again.

And here comes emptiness crashing in.

It's either love or hate, I can't find in between,

'Cause I've been with witches and I've been with a queen.

It wouldn't have worked out anyway.

So now it's just another lonely day.

Further along we just may...

But for now it's just another lonely day.

Wish there was something now I could say or do.

I can resist anything but the temptation from you.

But I'd rather walk alone than chase you around.

I'd rather fall myself then let you drag me on down.

It wouldn't have worked out anyway...

And now it's just another lonely day.

Further along we just may...

But for now, it's just another lonely day.

Yesterday seems like a life ago,

'Cause the one I love today, I hardly know.

You I held so close in my heart, oh dear,

Grow further from me with every fallen tear.

It wouldn't have worked out anyway.

So now it's just another lonely day.

Further along we just may...

Bur for now it's just another lonely day.

For now it's just another lonely day.

Grammy

I went to Grammy's memorial service yesterday. A very poignant time. Probably 300 people were in attendance and there were more than a few sniffles as Aunt Nancy and Tom recounted memories from her life and made tribute to this great woman. Truly there are few I admire more. She is an emblem of strength, poise, and absolute love. I hope only to one day absorb a few of the qualities of her great character. These were two poems printed on the back of her program at the service and I loved them.

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace;

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

Grant that I may not so much

Seek to be consoled as to console;

To be understood as to understand;

To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

~St. Francis of Assis (1182-1226)

I will not die an unlived life.

I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.

I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me,

To make me less afraid, more acessible,

To loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.

I choose to risk my significance;

To live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom

And that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.

~Dawna Markova

True Friends

I have learned a little about being friends in the last few months. This is a quote that embraces the core of true friendship I think. I love it.

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness--that is a friend who cares."

Public Journal

I have a friend who has a friend who, incidentally, over the summer mentioned once or twice that she wanted to be my friend too though it never worked out, but that's really beside the point. Or is it...since we all dated the same boy. So she, too, does her fair share of blogging and in fact has her own website where such blogging occurs with another girl who once wanted to marry the same guy the rest of us dated. Of course it doesn't really matter now that she's married to someone else but it adds to the eerie-ness of the present situation. It's like I'm living teen girl squad right here but with a darker twist. So friend 1 gives me girl 2's website where girl 2 and girl 3 do their blogging. But I couldn't help feeling like I was reading someone's journal as I skimmed through the site and read some of girl 2's serious and deep emotions encompassing a love she obviously lost. I suppose to an extent I understand the things she feels because in a round about way I've felt them too, though to a lesser degree, with the same person, which is what makes it feel so cruel. Things are just different when you know what someone really thinks and what they really feel and what they really want...or wanted. And here we have the Cheerleader, What's Her Face, So & So, and The Ugly One. Go Teen Girl Squad! What an ironic world we live in.

"Could someone send down my assignments?...and Brett's assignments?"

Working...or not

I have been considering this as of late and decided that in the workfield, spandex is not ok. I've spent the last two days reflecting on this very issue. See, my mom picked up one day and moved to Utah. She got a job and within two weeks, she was gone. Perhaps the most taxing aspect of her little adventure would be the rotting house she left to my care to sell. Trying to be optimistic I accepted the challenge (ok, I didn't really have a choice, I don't pay rent), thinking it wouldn't take much, just show up for a few open houses and voila, I live here for free for two months and my mother runs off to Utah nearly scot free. Not so much. Unfortunately, in all my wild plottings about the parties and such I would have in my newfound freedom of an empty house, I forgot to factor in two things. One, my mom owned five cats, and two, her real estate agent. The cats have decorated several corners of the house in that chauvinistic "marking my territory" urinating way and though they are gone, the odor remains. The real estate agent has maroon hair, a high pitched voice with a bit of a drawl, and spandex pants that bag a little where they end just above her ridiculously skinny ankles. She also wears ruffles but I don't want to talk about that. It's the spandex that concerns me. I have pondered on this for a while now and have come to virtually no conclusion. Being a real estate agent who drives a Mercedes I imagine she's not exactly hurting for money, which means she can afford new pants. Better pants. Maybe even some of the non-stretchy kind. And as I sit here at my own terribly boring job doing absolutely nothing but sip on hot chocolate, pilfer through the Halloween candy bowl, and write pointless blobs about people who have much better jobs than I do, I wonder how it is that someone who still values that 80's spandex fashion somehow can have a better job than me. Maybe I should revert back to spandex too.