Flashlight Discoveries

I find so much of my life in songs. So much. In the past I had the ability to write lyrics; I could create words on paper to match my inside. I have lost this art, maybe forever; it has been almost ten years since I have written a full song. For now, I am scouring the universe and my iTunes for stanzas and choruses and bridges that click, that open the door and shine light into the dark places. This light is especially vital in times when I feel as if I’m blindfolded and stumbling through situations; I am struggling to sort out how I feel, what I want, and what’s really happening in my life. As of late, these have been my flashlight discoveries.


This is the starting of a brand new day
I never liked this town much anyway
I need this city like I need the rain
I know that somewhere there’s a north bound train

Oh I’ll make it without you
And though my bodies laying here
It’s my mouth that must be lying now

This is the starting of my fall from grace
My self esteem, it’s seen better days
But you know I’ll never let this go to waste
I’ll keep this memory on the map I trace
Back to home
-“Make It without You” Andrew Belle


I've got another confession my friend
I'm no fool
I'm getting tired of starting again
Somewhere new

Were you born to resist or be abused?
I swear I'll never give in
I refuse

Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Has someone taken your faith?
Its real, the pain you feel
You trust, you must
Confess
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Oh...
-“Best of You” Foo Fighters


Change came in disguise of revelation, set his soul on fire
She said she always knew he'd come around
And the decades disappear
Like sinking ships but we persevere
God gives us hope but we still fear, we don't know
Your mind is poisoned
Castles in the sky, sit stranded, vandalized
The drawbridge is closing
-“Dustland Fairytale” Killers


I've got this energy beneath my feet
Like something underground's gonna come up and carry me
I've got this sentimental heart that beats
But I don't really mind that it's starting to get to me now

Why do you waste my time?
Is the answer to the question on your mind
And I'm sick of all my judges
So scared of what they'll find
But I know that I can make it
As long as somebody takes me home every now and then
-“Sam’s Town” Killers


It feels like everyday stays the same
It's dragging me down and I can't pull away
So here I go again
Chasing you down again
Why do I do this?

Over and over, over and over
I fall for you
Over and over, over and over
I try not to
Over and over, over and over
You make me fall for you
Over and over, over and over
You don't even try
-“Over and Over” Three Days Grace

As I look over the lyrics, they shine light into me. I am ready to move back home to Birmingham. I am done with Atlanta, I was done with Atlanta before Christmas. My heart faces westbound, ready and waiting. I am also hoping, wishing, praying that certain unspoken and undetermined parts of my life resolve themselves well and soon. At this time I have spoken of them so much and so often to so many people that I am simply tired of analyzing it and ready for an opportunity to act instead of analyze. In counseling, half one’s time is spent with the client and the other half is spent making notes, doing research, and conceptualizing the client’s situation. I have spent way more, way more than fifty percent of the time analyzing every part of my life at the moment. I am ready to go. I am ready.

But a Dream

I wrote this on July 14 of this year after a particularly vivid night, but I thought I could share it now.

I dreamed the other night that I was engaged. Most of my dreams have a general theme, and this particular dream was no different. It had pieces of reality in it- a weekend away at a family wedding, my real relatives were present and accounted for- and particles of complete nonsense- I was fighting, literally fighting, Jennifer Anniston off my fiancée and driving cars off the tops of buildings. And like most dreams, the details of the dream slip away as each hour passes since I’ve woken up, and yet I tried desperately to grasp onto them; like grabbing at a run-away kitten, I trap it for a second, just enough to be covered in hair but too far to actually rub my face in its fur. Most dreams I have include a storyline, characters, twists and turns, like watching a good but odd movie in which I happen to star. Sometimes I see myself from the outside, sometimes from my point of view. Characters will randomly swap out and be played by different people, right in the middle of the story, like a bad soap opera. Everything makes perfect sense at the time, but becomes more bizarre as I try to recall the story or tell it to someone else.

Only one time, when I was little, do I remember things being significantly different. My family was vacationing at the beach, and one night there I dreamed I dove into the pool at the hotel; the odd part was that I could feel, in my dream, the way it feels to dive into water. I could feel the sudden rush of cool, without bubbles like when you just jump in, or an ease of water around you if you walk in, or sprinkling heat like in the shower; it’s a sudden, body-shocking rush of pure cool around you, as pure as the air around you now. And I could feel it in my sleep; I could feel it so vividly that I woke up thinking that I had sleepwalked and sleep-dove into the pool and was surprised to find that I hadn’t.

The dream I had the other night was akin to my diving dream, except it was an emotion, several emotions, that I felt so much that I thought I was alive. I felt it like you can feel the change from humid to rain misting in the air and you know that you know that it’s now water, something you can grasp in your hand. In the dream, I had forgotten I was engaged until I noticed the ring on my finger. It was silver or white gold, with a small, round diamond in the center and one round turquoise stone on each side of the diamond. It was so simple, and so odd, but it was mine. And as I looked at it, it realized that I was engaged, to be married. The sense of peace and happiness I felt was pure and simple, with the colors from peace and joy flowing and blending into each other, until they filled me. It was the steady flame of a candle in me. It was like pouring beautiful pink-red water into a crystal basin. It was like a note from a perfectly tuned piano that echoes through your body, until your chest pulses with the immeasurable rhythms of the note. It was a perfect, perfect feeling that filled me and I understood because I didn’t understand it and I didn’t care. It was the simplest and most amazing emotion I can ever remember, and it was but a dream.

Once upon a time in high school, the girl at my table in science and I had a conversation about the one thing we wanted to do in life before we died (now that I think of it, an impressively complicated topic for two fifteen-year-olds). She insisted that she wanted to be a mother, and however much I considered her position, I could only understand it as it applied to her. I have never understood the drive to be a mother or the amazement that people find at bringing forth new life; it is a reconciliation I have had to make with myself for being so different from almost all other women I know in my Southern upbringing. I want to be a mother, but I want it like I want to visit Europe or graduate with a doctorate degree; it’s desirable, but if I don’t, I won’t feel as if my life has lost some luster. Even eight years ago, I knew that the one thing, the truly, truly one thing that I desire with a physical ache to have is to be married. I could list the reasons why, but it would sound as if I have calculated this top position logically. I haven’t. Like the feeling I had in a dream, it simply is. In my calculating, pre-psychologist childhood mind, I always thought that people dreamed what they feared or what they wanted. I haven’t really changed my mind on that position, but I have never believed in it so much until now. I dreamed a dream that was more telling of myself than I could ever say or write. Though it was but a dream, please don’t tell my heart- it wants to be married.

Random Update

Okay, enough of the serious blogs. Here's a random update of things in my life right now:

I love the way Frosted Mini Wheats soak up the milk when you drop them in it. As much as I've eaten of that darn cereal lately, I've seen this a lot.

My Norah Jones station on Pandora radio is amazing; I couldn't have imagined there were that many songs out there for my Norah Jones-moods.

Rich saved me from a "butterfly" the other day and I have never been more grateful that he doesn't chide me for crying over things such as that.

My legs are peeling from a sunburn... I got on Labor Day. What in the world took so long??

I really need to make that apple crisp stuff I made a couple weeks ago again. It was one of the best desserts I think I've ever had.

While riding in the car, I flip to 99x every so often just to see if they're playing "Ignorance" by Paramore.

Speaking of which, here are a few lyrics I can't stop listening to as of late:
I'm not the same kid from your memory
Well, now I can fend for myself
-"Ignorance" by Paramore

The more I know, the less I understand -"Forgiveness" by Don Healy

Well you and I
Why, we go carrying on for hours on end
We get along much better
Than you and your boyfriend
-"If It Kills Me" by Jason Mraz

Send me the miles and I'll be happy to
Follow you Love
-"Many the Miles" Sara Bareilles

I was born to walk, and built to last
-"Canned Heat" by Jamiroquai

I'm really into animal prints lately, but just zebra and giraffe. I think it started with the zebra print cake on Cake Boss early in the summer.

My apartments a mess, but I'd rather spend time with Rich than clean it. Or play WoW. Both are way more fun.

I think I have a really cool job.

I have finally met a three-year-old I like. She looks at me funny, won't sit on her dress, and is overall kind of weird, which is why I think I like her.

I hate typing transcripts; I mean, I really, really hate typing transcripts and listening to my own voice and realizing on paper how many more things I could have done had I been able to read it instead of being in the moment.

I am enjoying learning so much about myself through grad school and the past six months. I am finding myself growing and changing so much, and for the first time, I really think I like the woman I'm becoming. Tis a lovely journey to be on.

Down the River We Go

There are times in my life when I get tired of fussing about things and I simply suck it up and do it. When I arrived at my internship sit last Tuesday, I decided I was done feeling unproductive and scared of doing the wrong thing; I got frustrated enough to just say, "Screw it, I'm at least going to try." I did a few things wrong, but I did it anyway. When I knew my last relationship was ending, I fought against it, fought against him, fought against myself to hold onto something out of fear of the unknown. I was a struggling dam against a natural river's course, and the change it would be. My only success was in flooding my own life with fear and unhappiness. Long after many, often times smarter, people would have given in, I finally gave way and let the river run its course. I was taken aback at how easy it was to let the river run over me and carry me to a new place. I have now wanted his bed out of my bedroom for two months. I have even made plans for someone to help me move it, but have found other things to do instead of dealing with it. Today the dam burst again, and I could wait no longer to have it out; I wouldn't even hold off and have someone else to help me move it. It took me twice as long to do it myself, but every time I would reach a point where I was afraid that I couldn't accomplish the task alone, a surge of anger and resoluteness would wash over me and I pushed harder. I am currently fighting off an allergy attack because of it and my healing shoulder and arm muscles throb at me, but my bed is in my room now. It is just another way I know that the flooded plain is behind me, and I am traveling onward to new places.

Down the river we go- down, down, we go.

Swimming

I learned how to tread water years ago. Though a total surprise, it was necessary that I learn. I knew of the existence of the sea, but it was abstract and a far distant concern while I was securely on the shore. My plunge into the sea was sudden and vicious, and I was lost in waves, not knowing where the surface was or how to reach it. I'm not even sure I wanted to fight; I didn't think I could or even know that I had to. Eventually the angry waters receded, and I could touch ground again, gasp for air, and remember how to breathe. I never truly made it to the shore again; occasionally the waves would lap over my head, and I would begin to tread water as best I could. Over the years, certain events were undertows that drug me out, deeper and deeper each time. I learned to tread water better, because it was necessary- I was quite literally fighting for my life.

Eventually a storm of unexpected strength appeared and the undertow swept me away, pulling me under, far, so far from shore. For a time, I fought to stay above, but I grew tired, and weary, and simply let go. I sank below the surface without struggle. I didn't necessarily want to and wasn't actively trying to drown; nevertheless, I didn't care if I did. I lacked the will, the strength, or even the courage to swim, and so, I sank. Life vests were thrown to me, and I accepted them reluctantly. I eventually stopped sinking and even broke the surface, returning my life vests out of pride.

For the next two years, I came closer to the shore, but was still to deep to stand. So I treaded water again. Waves would come and wash over my head, and I learned to tread more and better. At the end of those two years, another massive storm came, similar in magnitude to the one before it. To my complete and utter surprise, I found myself able to keep my head above water by my own strength. The storm swelled and thrashed me through the sea, like an angry child at a naughty doll, and yet I was firm, my head stayed above, and I continued to breathe. I never expected that I would be able to tread the back-breaking waves; my surprise in this was then completely overwhelmed by my shock at my ability to swim for the shore. Only a short time before, I was drowning; now, I was able to swim out of the undertow that was railing against me, siren calling me to a release. When I was drowning, my loss of will and courage was brought on by my knowledge of how weak I was; I knew I couldn't fight strong enough to stay afloat, and I didn't. But somehow in the last two years of treading, I grew stronger than I ever imagined I could be. I grew strong and courageous enough not just to breathe, but swim to shore and to freedom.

Originally I thought this would be a story on treading water. Halfway through, I realized I wasn't giving myself enough credit. I'm no longer simply trying to breathe; I'm taking steps, or strokes rather, to be whole, stronger, better. I am the lion who found the courage that was there all along, and the view is much better from the shore.