November 15, a day which shall live in infamy

November 15, 2010
A year ago today, my dad left my mom. A month ago today, their divorce was final. Within a week, he was remarried. Last week, my mom officially declared her dating status. So, within a year, I went from being a grad student of parents who never divorced, to having to deal with all the bullshit of a split family. What to do about the holidays? Do I talk to him? Do I spend time with his family? Etc.
Law school has always felt like a refining fire. This last year felt like being dipped in plasma. But, I can see so much good that has come out of it. My mom is a better person – snapped out of the daily drama. My brother, I worry about. He has grown jaded and angry. God has made me better, though. He has humbled me and forced me to work very hard. Right now, I feel like any new lessons and abilities to concentrate and focus are totally out the window. As Senator Bob says, I’m soured. However, I am confident it is for the best. My friendships have been refined. I’ve come to terms, to a certain extent, with my sexuality and how I am going to live out my life and how that correlates with my life in the church community. The challenge is to stay, not to run away. I do think I’ve changed in ways that I’m not sure are good. I’m more abrupt, more bold, less inhibited, more confident, more stubborn, more apathetic. You know how a good swim makes you feel refreshed, but simultaneously utterly exhausted? I think that is how I feel. And now, many of my law school friends graduated and left and some more leaving soon and me transitioning soon. I put on my facebook- “the end of the beginning.” Sometimes I’m annoyed with people I care about. They lack a certain depth. Lori says the end of what beginning? Never mind. If you don’t get it, I don’t want to try to explain. This last year was the beginning of a new beginning. Today marks the end of the beginning. When dad walked out, God threw me out a window into a new level of adulthood. Within the next year, I will write a thesis, take the bar exam, learn to cope with changing relationships, hopefully get a job and start the next phase of my life.
Oddly, after Barb’s stern email last week, I feel motivated. She said to shoot for 30-40 hours a week. So, I’m shooting for 8 hours a day. A goal. All I needed, perhaps, was a goal. Or for this day to come, or to get my apartment settled – completely. Or just a month off from driving home.... Or that sense of urgency that comes with hitting the latter part of the semester, or more medication. Or, all of the above. Regardless... I’m working, focusing and today, walking back from student health, I decided I was going to finish a master’s thesis by May. It will be a somewhat remarkable feat, but I bet I can do it. I’m willing to rise to the challenge. Again, I’m not sure what changed. Maybe someone prayed a little extra for me. Maybe I confessed my apathy..... I’m really not sure what changed. But, I’m willing to wake up tomorrow and start anew. 27, divorced parents, grad student, coffee drinker. (the latter, I think, will be essential to surviving the next six months.
Oo – I just realized, in six months, I will be graduated. This really is a milestone. Today. Right now. Tomorrow is the first day of the next era and I am thankful. This realization makes me excited, refreshed, etc. I tried to feel like this at each small milestone through this divorce, but I didn’t feel it – it was hollow. Today, I feel wholly ready for the next big thing.

Ass-kicking

This fifth semester of law school has been rough. Or maybe it was the year long death of a marriage that did it to me. My counselor/life coach tells me that if/when I ever meet someone I will need to tell them that I've been through a divorce... not mine own, but still, a divorce. Either way, all semester I've struggled, like Jacob with the angel? I'm apathetic."If only I could find an enemy bigger than my apathy, I could have won." I'm distracted, no longer motivated. I'm not afraid of failing. I'm not afraid of disappointing anyone. If you don't have fear to motivate you, what is left? A desire for money? I can make enough money to support myself without a JD/MS. A desire for success? getting out of bed in the morning is success. Power? My power lies within my faith. Sex, drugs, or money? Not appealing. So.... a remote sense that I don't want to disappoint my professor. Yes. That is not enough to make me motivated. So, I've been half-assing my way through. Until last week. Sitting in class, I realized that I was miserable because I am never adequately prepared. Part of being the person I want to be is being prepared. I am never adequately prepared. So, I have determined to learn to prepare. However, I then turned in my thesis proposal. I knew it wasn't awesome. However, the reaction from my adorably wonderful major professor was enough to tip me over the edge of the abyss. Hence, the ass-kicking. Not to say, it wasn't deserved. It totally was. I half-assed that thing. However, I don't know how I am going to devote enough time to this thing and do the other things I need to do. I don't even know how to do this thing. I woke up this morning wondering if I could even do this. I thought, well, I finished law school, I should be able to get a master's degree.But, on the other hand, I don't seem to want to do this, be very good at doing this, or have the energy for this. Why should I do this if I'm not going to do a good job of it? I want to do well. I want to not let my professor down. But I don't want to suck at this. I was pretty down. I'm tired, not physically tired as much. These days I sleep 8-9 hours a night. Shocking to anyone who knew me in college. I used to be a 5-7 a night girl.I'm emotionally tired. In the last year, my parents went from a 35 year marriage to being divorced, my dad remarried and my mom dating some guy she knew in highschool. That's kind of a paradigm shift. I'm intellectually tired. Right now, I don't want to think this hard anymore. I don't want to figure things out anymore. I just want to slip into a rote existence. Fortunately I have great friends who have more faith in me than they should. They also remind me that I'll regret it if I quit and that I will be ok. Some good conversations and a good 6 hours in a coffee shop working, listening to chill music, and a honey latte I'm ok. Still tired, but I can do this. Sometimes motivation is all about mindset. Sometimes depression is the only cure for apathy. That or good company of people who care about you and believe in you. (A nap and a good lunch helps, too.)

Arrival

As children, we wait to be grown-ups. We wait to arrive. My grandfather recently told me that life comes in stages, like a buffet. We never arrive - we travel, we walk through, taking what we want, sometimes ending up with what we didn't expect. The contrast would have made childhood much less traumatic. Think of it, guilt, regrets... when shit comes, duck and keep walking. Don't look back. Sometimes you take a wrong turn. Find your way home then keep walking. Every day is a new opportunity to take the right turn. Did you abandon? were you abandoned? Did you cause harm? were you harmed? I've been learning coping skills. Emotions are real. We don't coddle children because we they're just tired, need to eat, are cold, feel pain -all these excuses to delegitamize their emotions. It's not that their sadness and pain isn't real - they just aren't coping. I find that disturbing. Are we supposed to feel our emotions or cope with our emotions? Is there a way to do both? Why is showing emotion so concerning? What is the difference between not coping and showing emotion in a healthy way? Each stage of life presents challenges. Parents, teach your children to cope, to roll with the punches. Don't feel guilty cause you fucked them up. You didn't. They were born that way. Teach them to cope with it. Cope with it through good health, through faith in God, through healthy relationships, support systems, etc. But, in the end, they have their path to walk. As do you. Walk with dignity. Find joy when you have joy. Enjoy the beautiful when it crosses your path. Endure the pain when it comes. Love when you have the chance. Find beauty in the solace when it comes. It's all life. We have our destiny, our path, our God given futures. Walk them.

Needs vs. Wants

Wants and Needs. We are told to differentiate when we consider money. What do you want versus what do you need. Need: necessary for organisms to live a healthy life. Want: something that is desired. Would you rather be necessary or desired? I would rather be desired. Being necessary creates obligation. Obligation creates guilt and resentment. Guilt and resentment breed worse emotions. Desire is just as hopeless, I suppose. Desire leads to expectations which are then disappointed. Or, desire leads to love, unconditional love.... worship maybe, but that goes too far. I want to be wanted, not needed. I have often felt needed, rarely felt wanted. I think we mistake them for each other. I want you, I need you, oh baby oh baby. Need makes me afraid. I am afraid to need. Need creates obligation. Obligation creates the opportunity for failure. I am afraid to need for fear that I will be failed when I need most. Want is more empowering. If I want you, but I don’t need you, then you can come and go and I will be left wanting, but not desperate. What is the purpose of life? To glorify God and enjoy Him. How do we enjoy Him? By enjoying the good things he has created. How do we glorify him? By loving him and loving our fellow man. The purpose of life is to love and find joy. Need is not love. Need creates the opportunity for idol worship, need creates the opportunity for hatred. Wanting, in contrast, creates the opportunity for love, for desire, the failure to fulfill want could lead to such sins as jealousy and covetousness. I suppose all leads to conflict and negativity and sin. I still believe Want is less likely to than Need. I want to be wanted so I have made myself needed without needing. In consequence I find myself wanting and unwanted by not needing but by being needed. I have successfully gained that which I never wanted in pursuing being wanted. Because, in the end, I am never enough. Those who thought they needed me soon find other ways to fulfill their needs and I’m not sure anyone ever wanted me, if they did, in my absence (which I am frequently absent) they find other ways to fulfill their wants. This is the path down which I spiral.

Hello

"I'd make such a good statistic, someone study me now, someone has to be interested in how I feel, just because I'm here and I'm real."
I just realized that no one reads my blog. Made me feel like there's no point in writing. But, then I realized I should write more often if I want anyone to read my blog and also, I don't write because someone wants to read it. I write because it's a release.
Thoughts I've had:
Turning my back on empty darkness makes me want to cry and scream and run inside to the light. Closing my eyes in murky water makes me feel the same way.
My brother is a hurricane. I'm not sure what I am, but the opposite of a hurricane.
I like gardening. Digging in dirt, disturbing worms, nurturing pretty things, digging out undesirables.
I also like fire. Burning the dead. Releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Clearing the way for new things.
Divorce is death. It involves grief, mourning, disposal of belongings.
I don't know how to balance compassion and not enabling someone to mental illness. How do you love someone?
More importantly, how do you forgive someone when you're not even sure what you've lost? She says he's my father- you've lost your father. I just want to say, he's not my father, my father's in Seattle. He was my daddy, but I don't need/want a daddy anymore and he doesn't need/want to be a daddy. So. now what?
We busted our asses for two days. All she can say, "why would that bastard leave me?"
She says he was so ungrateful for all that she did. She says he was so selfish when he left her.
I want her to be well. I want her to forgive. I want her to see hope. But, she doesn't want to. So, what am I supposed to do? She says she doesn't know what to do. Well, neither do I.
ooo - more importantly, I figured out something about the whole crazy thing. I say some people are crazy. People say I am crazy, but I am not crazy like they are crazy and I'm afraid of being crazy like they are crazy, but I welcome my craziness. I am unconventional. I do things that people don't expect, that possibly shouldn't be done. I make very rational decisions, but sometimes they are very unexpected and not what people expect. They are irrational, thinking in loops, making decisions based on fleeting emotions and random ideas. That is crazy to me. Repeating themselves constantly and yet remembering every little detail from an argument 25 years ago. That's the difference. Next time someone tells me I'm crazy, I'm going to ask if I am unconventional or irrational. There's a HUGE difference.
She's had insomnia lately. I'm tempted to stay up late just to meet her in that dark quiet hour in hopes of a profound conversation. I realized the other night, when I talk to myself, I talk about philosophies and politics and big ideas. I want to have those kinds of conversations with other people, that's why I get so frustrated with nominal conversations about people and events. I don't even talk about that shit with myself. Why would I want to talk about it with you?
Having made that incredibly arrogant statement, I don't mean to imply that I am better, more intellectual, more intelligent. I just like different things. I am wired differently.
The more we enable, the less empowered she feels. So, then what?
Done.

El Fin

Sunshine, peach cigars, Chopin Preludes and Nocturnes, red-winged blackbirds, mauve sky in the gloaming, a story of an ending, but never a beginning.

Why can’t I make up stories about the beginnings of relationships? I tried, but it felt fake. The ending I can picture perfectly. I am always thinking about endings. This will not end well. Why do something when you know it will not end well. Why can’t I see beginnings? What were their names in my head ? Jane, the friend in Vancouver. Sarah – the one who would be everything I couldn’t be. Maybe because it’s a recurring theme – a story that has a myriad beginnings but always the same ending.

Le Mort

Unedited...

We carry baggage with us
Belongings of others
Other people
Other lifetimes
Other loves
Other losses

We inherit these things
In an effort to avoid
Those lives passing without memoriam

They pass through our hands
To our children
They live in boxes
meaning too much to be disposed of

This was a death
I offered my hair to this death
Absence
Sorting through the belongings
Categorizing
Dividing
Do you want this?
Do you want that?

That teacup
The bible
The constructing tools
No longer useful

Keepsakes
Memories of people long past
As if the keepsakes, the belongings carry the memories
Unaccessible
But still there
Like we wish the owners were.

Eventually, they don’t mean anything anymore
Some host from some tv show sells it in a garage sale
Does it lose its memories
Or just continue collecting in a new venue

Memories buried
In emotion
In a garage
In the dirt

Dissolving
Or waiting to be accessed
By some hopeful archeologist
In an effort to recover
Memories

What of the relationships without their people anymore
Two rings, a garter
Symbols of death.

Update

I've been working out 2-4 days a week - weights, cardio. Gained 3 pounds, but the belly is shrinking and I feel strong! Yay!

Fall 2009

I went running tonight - well, my version of running is to run about 5 blocks, then walk about 5, then run, then stand there and try to figure out which way to go next... you get the picture. Anyway, i was driving to and from walmart smoking a cigarette and the mist inspired me. I used to run in Olympia around the cul-de-sac in this kind of weather - it was glorious. Quiet, peaceful, cool. So, I went out in it thinking it was unwise, but I did it anyway.
I was impressed that I could run farther then I used to be able to and wasn't nearly as miserable as I used to be. I would have thought five months of sitting on my ass would have been harder on my fitness.
I wasn't just lazy. First, I got the swine flu. Then, I sprained my ankle - very much badly. I still rode my bike to school though, until I slipped on some ice and almost cried because of the pain in my sore ankle. Then, I met my father, lost an undefined relationship, came down with mono, my daddy left my mommy, and my mommy left her sanity behind, then I had finals, then two papers worth of a Christmas break. This is the third week of the new semester and I feel like I'm on a new journey.
I want to be healthy - I want to eat healthy and exercise and get good counsel and not engage in destructive behavior. This is who I want to be. Last semester was the end of a lot of things. This semester, this year, is a new beginning in almost every aspect of my life. A new direction in my education, parameters on my inheritance, new relationship with my parents, new priorities, new challenges. Cheers.

Daydreaming

I get strong feelings about people sometimes. Like, I can't get them off of my mind for days on end. I assume this means they need prayer, or they are thinking about me and I should make an effort and connect with them.

She's been on my mind a lot yesterday and today. I'm not sure why. The primary daydream has been one of me not giving in. Maybe it's this book I'm reading her. How the main character screams her name at me. and, I'm listening to Coldplay.

The song I listened to on my way to our first meeting seemed so perfect. Yet, at the time, the song afterwords, Warning Sign, always seemed more appropriate. I wanted to like "Green Eyes", but "warning sign" always seemed better. In the end, you guess which one makes the most sense. Shoulda known.

If she gets too tired, and mercy and grace kick in in unexpected ways, this is what I will do.
Take off. yes, that is what I want. A week or two in Seattle, Olympia, Port Townsend, a week in Portland, a week or two in Boise, A week or two in Albuquerque, a few months in New Zealand (assuming my dear friend goes through with it and I can go with), come back to DC and hang (coerce someone into giving me a job), then to Billings, Helena, maybe Bozeman. Then to North Idaho to recuperate (beg for a place to sleep in a cabin or a stable). From there to Spokane to write resumes and apply for forever kind of jobs. And then home, where all will be well once more. Basically, I want to travel to the people who I love and heal, slowly. Then maybe I'll write a book - about taking lots of pictures - telling stories - camping out and living out of my car, taking random bartending and table waiting jobs inspite of my expensive education.

This is my plan. Keep in mind that what you want to be rarely will be, sometimes it's the next thing that you land on.

coffeeshop

I feel strong conflicting emotions.

Friendships aren't what I thought they were. Confused.

There are a few people in my life who I love. Wholly, truly, in a way I don't even understand. I want them to find someone who loves them as much and more and better than I do. Oftentimes when they meet these people, I try to help. I understand the people I love and I want the ones who love them to understand too. Makes for strange conversations.

Impetuous, passionate, fierce - Hold on! it's worth it! hold on through the fights - through the depression - through the anger, hold your love loosely, but hold on!

Sweet, devoted, unstable, loyal, kind to a fault, will fight and be mean until you stand up for yourself - it's worth it! Sit through the bad nights, be there on the good days, be stable for the instability, stand up for yourself, stand up for your love - it's worth it.

Intense, high-speed, unstable, a doer, a protector, your knight in shining armor - hold on through the yelling, duck the thrown objects, be there the next morning when vision has cleared, love anyway, love being protected, do your part - it's worth it.

Both of them are mine - they say they wouldn't be one if it wasn't for me - I said forgive, love, see the why instead of the what - it's worth it.

They are mine, but not like they are yours. They are mine in an inscrutable, indefinable way. I have been where you are, it wasn't meant to be - I'm not enough, or at least, I'm not just right or I had another place to fill - I can't explain. I have too many roadblocks.However,they are still mine and I will do whatever I can to make you theirs as long as possible - maybe someday you will be mine too.

Confusion

I distinctly remember looking at the clock before I went to bed. 1/19/2010.
That means when I woke up it should have been 1/20/2010. No. It was still 1/19/2010. I was lost for most of the day. I guess that is what happens when you go to bed in the wee hours of the morning.

Damn her for introducing me to Marlboro No. 27. Pipes take too long to smoke. Cigars and cigarillos smell weird. Marb reds are too harsh. Marb mediums and Marb lights have no flavor. But Blend No. 27 has flavor without the burn. Dangerous.

Looking for apartments. I'm excited. My own place, really. I can decorate, have parties, have company. It's all I dream about.

I was explaining tonight that the voices have started again. As soon as I try to sleep, there's this constant conversation in my head. It stopped a couple weeks ago when I actually tried to listen to what was being said and respond. But, the voices are back. It's just when I sleep. I think it's my subconscious trying to process - there's just not enough time betwee 3 and 9 am to get it all out.

See - I'm okay! really! :)

Tired

In the book, the mom killed herself because she was tired. Just too tired.
That is what she is saying now. I'm so tired. It sends a chill through me. Not that she would kill herself, she doesn't seem suicidal anymore. But still. I suppose i should be glad that she is angry now and not sad anymore. my anger is wizard's fire. Her anger is battery acid, swirling through and around her. Where's the baking soda?

I'm not tired anymore. I'm here, waiting, walking my path step by step. It was a rough week. However, thanks to very good advice, I am learning to open my arms to the blows, open my mind and heart to the emotions - feel, let them flow through me, then let them go.

inform your conscience, live by it. God is good. Love God, Love People. This is the simplistic whole.

May he have mercy and not let her get too tired.

Nocturne

Lately, I can't sleep until at least 3 am. It's not that I don't like to sleep - I love sleeping, I hate getting out of bed, it's the hardest thing I do all day.

Nighttime is quiet. Everyone else has finally gone to sleep. Music just floats quietly in the air. The light is softer, sleepier. I can finally focus - no one demanding anything. Just me, whatever project laying in front of me, and the night stretching out like free time. It's like stealing time... it doesn't count in the middle of the night.

Time to process, to think, to float away on music and memories, to come to terms with the day behind and the day ahead.

Peace.

Prayer

Concerts are spiritual experiences, U2, Beethoven's 9th, Brandi carlile.
I read and listen to music because I can't put myself into words.
I sing along, I scream, I dance - I have to be a part of it - It's better if I can touch someone who feels it too - connecting, Sometimes I just stop and put my head back, close my eyes and let it flow through me. It's kind of like chelation - the music flows through my mental veins attracting all the bad shit and carrying it out. The next day, my feet hurt, my legs hurt, I'm shaking, I'm exhausted... but I feel clean and renewed.

I pray best when smoking.
I know that sounds like a smoker's excuse. I don't want to smoke. Everytime I smoke lately, I get a sore throat and get sick, but really, it helps me pray.
When I was in college, I used to go out in the back 40 where there was dim yellow light and no one could see me. I would find a stump to sit on and smoke and pray. The smoke was like Old Testament incense, carrying my prayers to God. The yellow light was enough to keep me safe, leaving enough darkness to hide me. The wind in the trees tells me that the Holy Spirit is real, present, listening, comforting, moving, making music, a soft chime.

Even now, I stand on my steps in sight of the soft yellow light, listen to the wind, slowly inhale and exhale my prayers to God. The Holy Spirit carries them away and leaves me peaceful, relaxed, comforted. The Comforter. A Happy Place, much like the others - muted light, breath, warmth, comfort.

Even in high school, the night, in sight of the light, held peace, hushed conversations about important things that would fade in the daylight.

Daylight is for being strong, fighting the good fight. Nighttime is when God moves, things too important to be spoken in the daylight expose themselves in hushed tones, quiet tears and my prayers float to God as smoke in the wind.

back to the grind

I really am more ok than everyone thinks. Or am I lying to myself? I feel ok, until something happens and I burst into tears spontaneously and uncontrollably. But, then, I stop. and everything is ok again. Coping skills, denial, or maybe I just am really ok. Or not.
The Brandi Carlile concert might mean a lot of tears - I better warn my friends.

It's nice to be back in school... but I hate that sick feeling of dread when I think of all the things I need to do in not enough time. I am who I am, can do what I can. My job is to just do it.

Thanks to all my friends - I feel like someone on a tightrope who has a great safety net. Thanks, safety net.

Sometimes, though, I just want to leave and not look back. Move to Seattle,Portland, Boise, Albuquerque, Helena... be whoever I feel like being - fade into the background. Just fade away. If she succeeds, it will be hard not to.

Ramble Ramble

Humanity

A beautiful soul I know said to me in the midst of the valley of the shadow of death that hard times made us feel humanity more keenly and enabled us to reach greater depths of compassion. (or something like that, because i can't quite remember).

Times like these I often wonder what God is doing, because I don't believe in coincidences.
i have learned deeply personal things about many people in the last couple weeks and learned some things about myself. I forget my version of my story sometimes and get caught up in drama and how normal people would react in a situation. i don't feel my own emotions sometimes - if I did, I would probably be better off.
What does it mean to know something about someone, to have had someone be vulnerable with you? If it has been personally entrusted, I suppose it is like a treasure, to be held close to the heart and cherished.If it was put in the public domain, I think it should still be treasured.
How do you look someone in the eye when you know something so personal about them and they know similar things about you, but you don't know them so personally? To treat it lightly seems to make the treasures lighter when perhaps they shouldn't be.
At the end of all this - because this weekend is marking an end, of something - I come back to what I have always known. Open up your heart - Love, knowingly, with gravity, but without getting caught up in the drama. Love unconditionally. Love in spite of the vulnerability/because of the vulnerability. Be safe for others to deposit their treasures with.
I want it to mean something. That is my emotional hang-up. The grief comes when I think it didn't mean anything. But, it always means something. This is why it's hard to look them in the eye - I don't want to see that it didn't mean anything - I don't want to see what it really did mean.
Perfect love casts out fear.
Transparency means letting your love hang out... and your faults too.
Enough.

observation

My mom is becoming a Black Baptist Preacher.
I said the Apostle's Creed in the shower like a Black baptist preacher once. It gave it much more power and strength.

numb

I am out of outlets. i am tired of journaling - trying to be cautious of Facebook posts. So, here we go - angry rants out to who knows who.

I feel numb. I feel used. I feel like I have been lied to. I feel like I have been betrayed. I feel like everything in the world that I used to hold as true is hollow. I feel hollow - like the person I think I am is no longer who I am.
I have no one to be angry with except myself. Well, I have a right to be angry with him. My father - no. not my father. My daddy - the one who is supposed to be my knight in shining honor - a Gollum, a coward, who doesn't have the courage or respect to be honest with me. Kind of like someone else in my life. But I deserved the latter, it is about me. The former isn't. The former is about a series of tragedies that I was sucked into - like the pirate ship into the whirlpool. The latter is like Jack Sparrow into the Krakon's mouth. I should have asked, I should have known, I am so naive sometimes in spite of my best efforts to the contrary. Ironic. Yesterday, my happy place, the one person who had given me what I needed today is the one who I feel most betrayed by, sickened by.
The book was supposed to be cathartic, but I am so angry - it just annoys me.

I am not myself. My music does not soothe me - Brandi and Ani fail me now - I'm not in that deep spirit, deep mellow depression. I am ready for action, i am frustrated and angry and annoyed - I need movement, I need to not be me anymore. I need to be that person who I always thought I was now. Leave my bullshit behind. Leave my childish desires and fantasies behind. They were the movie - this is the reality. A harder colder lonelier less romantic reality. Thankfully. I can't stand the romantic, yellow light, warm fuzziness, encompassing as the warmth of blankets darkness, sadness anymore. Give me cold clean powerful anger - let it flow through me like raw power - like wizards fire and let it consume everyone in my path who can't withstand it.
i always regret it. I always hurt people when I'm like this. That makes me madder - why can't they stand it? why can't they love me anyway? because they are human... just like me. Because they are weak, just like me. Because they aren't made of steel - they are made of softer silver and gold.
I'm sorry.
I have no one to blame but me, the one person I can never manage to forgive.
She was trying to convince me to be transparent. I was on this honesty kick for a while - wizards fire. Then I realized that people can't withstand transparency and wizard's fire. It causes them to see themselves - it isn't grace. It doesn't love in spite of faults - it reveals truth.
Conditional honesty. She says that is arrogant. No, it is acknowledging that when someone loves you, you have a duty not to hurt them needlessly.
Confession is supposed to make you feel clean. Confession has led to discomfort, and opened the door to unmentionables, it has created a community, but created peer pressure.
I am what I am - my life is not my own - my humanity and god's divinity have created in me a walking contradiction.
I'm sorry. Thanks for your advice, but you don't understand.
Each of you has a piece of me. Your advice is based on the piece you know and love. But there are other pieces which weigh against me. Maybe someday I will choose a single path and follow it to the exclusion of these other paths, to the exclusion of some of you. Maybe God will let you exclude me, so I don't have to suffer the guilt.
Or, he will teach me to forgive myself. I have a funny feeling he's going to make me do it the hard way.
Alas, 2 am, still nothing done. But I have expressed myself - funny, before last week I couldn't write... .didn't have anything to say. Now I am saying lots of things, without speaking anything worthwhile.
No, it won't ever be over. Learn to cope, to deal, to live with this. Get it out of your head the best you can, then move on.

What did the dear cousin put on my wall today? "In three words, i can sum up everything I have learned in life: It Goes On."

God is good, Beer is great, People are crazy.
Fear God and Keep his commandments for this is the end of man.
Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk humbly with thy god.
Be Strong and of good courage, for I am the Lord Thy God who brought you out of Egypt.
Love the Lord thy God with thy heart, soul, and mind and love thy neighbor as thyself.
Paul and Silas praised God around midnight and their prison was broken.
Dear God, This sucks, it's my fault - I'm sorry, Help Me. thank you.

Here god, this is what I want and I'm going there unless you tell me otherwise. Guide my steps.
Dear God, Thank you for another day. May your will be done. In Jesus name, Amen.