HOME

it's been a rough week. feeling a little less than sufficient to handle all the stress hurtling my way lately. nothing really new, just everything seems amplified for some reason.

i had to re-sign my lease on monday. (and having said that with a sigh, i WILL say i LOVE this apartment--- just not the environment it places me in, if that makes sense) ...
couldn't figure a way out of it at this point in my life. can't really afford to move with new security deposits and what not, and even if i could, settling somewhere ELSE, AGAIN, when i truly, honestly, want to buy a piece of land next year just seems silly.

so here i sit, until june 2011. it's convenient to work and it saves me gas 'cause i walk everywhere... but i'm already ready to wave goodbye to this town and get started on my own little piece of dirt.

i'm going to to make this little brick box i live in cozy and comfortable for as long i'm here, but i'm so home sick for some place real that it makes my stomach hurt.....

(or maybe that's my recurrent stress ulcer)

at this point who knows.

=)

c h r i s t i a n

so much sadness in the world right now- especially in haiti.

i don't care whether those devastated people have met jesus- i just hope right now they have some clean water to drink and a place to lay their heads. we'll worry about souls when the world isn't crashing.

that old man said some awful things, and if being a "christian" means aligning myself with his beliefs, then i'm certainly not, and never was one.

as a child making sure everyone was a "christian" was so important. i'd meet a new friend and ask if they were before i found out anything else that really mattered....
but now, though i certainly have friends who are more traditionally "Christian", the majority of us are just stumbling through life clutching on to the few truths we still believe in, and figuring out the rest over drinks.

right now, i have a relationship with a God who i believe cares infinitely more about me and everyone else than i can possibly understand.

i've quit trying to figure it out- and i won't try to fit into a space that someone else made for me, with rules that don't apply.

there will always be hurtful people saying hurtful things, and there will always be people trying to make 'christianity' into what THEY need it to be- excluding those among us (myself completely included) who struggle with our lifestyles and our futures and the choices we make to get through every day.


all i know is i belong to a Love that shuts no one out.

because it starts off like Ennio Morricone ...

and ends up in a frenzy of tambourine and hand claps and JOY.

i'm obsessing over Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros and their song "Home."

go listen to it now, and come back.

there.

don't you feel happy and light and free?

i read a review of this band and the writer said to keep this song (Home) around as a sort of musical prescription for any kind of "psychic" emergency. made me laugh---- but i think it's totally appropriate. the vibe they put off is so trippy and fun that you can't help but smile.

home seems like something different every time i try to define it. i think because i don't live at "home" with my parents it certainly feels different than it might have felt ten years ago... but truthfully, even when i was living there for a bit last year it never felt like home to me. maybe it's because i didn't grow up in the house they live in now (though there really isn't one singular house i grew up in anyway) ... or maybe it's just that i'm older. i don't know. i don't feel like my apartment is necessarily home, either.... but it's where i live, so TECHNICALLY maybe it's home.

i guess i'm still looking. i'll get there eventually--- and it'll be wonderful.

the last time

i remember it being this cold i was probably nine or ten years old. we were living in the stone house and there were enough sub-freezing nights in a row that my dad finally let us go out on the pond to slide around.

i remember a few places near the middle where it had frozen almost clear- we could look down and see the mud and water-grass and everything sort of just suspended in the ice. even though the water at it's deepest was probably only eight feet, i was still terrified to go out standing into the middle so i would scoot out on my belly and look down that way.

we'd spend the whole day sliding around and then come in with icy stumps for feet and hands and drink hot cocoa, wincing the whole time as we warmed back up.

i miss those days.

i think i'll go put on my boots and tramp around for a while, just for old times sake. it won't be quite the same downtown as it is was in the woods of my childhood, but it'll do for now.

RESOLUTE

yesterday i didn't make any resolutions. i usually end up breaking them a few days into the new year anyway (quite by accident, most times) and thought to save myself the trouble and forget the whole thing.

i think i'd rather be resolute than make resolutions anyhow.

i just want to:

be a better daughter, a better sister and a better friend

write more, and think about writing less

stop looking ahead paychecks, weeks and pounds

laugh harder and cry less, and for the last time------------

stop doubting the ridiculous LOVE i keep running into

the notion of a God who cares has been hard for me to swallow lately. i won't lie or pretend that i hold onto my faith easily, because i don't- but this year, i've decided i'm going to be like Jacob. my grip might weaken and my fingers may slip-

but i won't let go until i'm blessed.

lonesome for

the smell of the outdoors. spending a little time out at my parents house always makes me feel a little sick coming back to the city.

this place isn't home- but it's where i live. i need to figure out how to make those two things connect.

right for me

wait. wait wait wait. it seems that's all i ever do. wait for my hair to grow. wait to lose a few more pounds. wait for my life to start.

funny thing is the whole time i've been waiting, it's been happening. it's all happening. right now.

i'm not waiting anymore. life is what i choose it to be, and even though i'm unreconciled to many, many things that have come along, i'm CHOOSING to be at peace with everything else.

i make mistakes, and my life is messy- BUT

i believe this is heaven to no one else but me-
and i'll defend it long as i can be left here to linger.