I don't want to be today. I can't say that anywhere but here. Here where noone in my real life day to day knows me. That's probably sad. My life is sad like that. Of course I never act on these feelings when they come boiling to the surface for the millionth time. I just sit with them, wonder if they'll ever go away for good, wonder why I can't just be normal. So I say it here. I say that I ache for it to be over. Then take a pill, go to sleep and know that tomorrow will be worse, Thursday unbearable.....then slowly it will become easier to ignore, to bury and wait for next time. blah

Halloween

This post has nothing to do with Halloween, but it amuses me that I still spell it using the song I learned in second grade. Anyway, I'm sad and that is why I write. Why am I sad, who knows. Maybe because the rest of the world is out walking their children door to door while I sit alone in my house with the tv turned up hoping I won't hear their laughter. Maybe I am depressed. Maybe both.

I admit I feel like giving up. I have reached this place that I am not sure I have been before. I know the Truth. I know it it is true beyond a shadow of a doubt. However, I live as though I don't know it at all. My heart tells me that the God of love is, in my life, only the God of disappointment. That my heart will not heal. That I will never be whole. That my dreams will only ever exist in my sleep. That I am and always will be alone. That no one, especially God, will ever really love me. Now, I know those are lies. But, I live as though they are truth. And, I am told, that you can not live contrary to your beliefs. So, perhaps what I say I believe is actually not what I believe at all. What if I don't know Jesus anymore than I know His love. What if my inability to accept His truth in the depths of my heart means that I never believed it to begin with.

So, all that to say, I find myself wondering if there is a point to my story at all. Perhaps all this church, all this bible study, all this begging Him to let me find Him. Maybe it's all just a waste of time and energy. I feel like I can't seek Him any more than I already have in my life. He said if I seek with all my heart I'll find Him. I haven't found Him and He hasn't found me, which means I must be doing it wrong. Problem is, I don't know how to do it any differently so I don't know that I shouldn't just give in. The lies are easier to believe anyway, right?

Fifteen Years

I miss you today. I miss you everyday. For the past fifteen years, and for the next.

Wooden Heart

Ok, so for me, it was a little difficult to follow along with the artist actually speaking the poem. The words, however, are too beautiful, raw and powerful not to have shared.

Enjoy

WOODEN HEART (sea of mist called skaidan)
We’re all born to broken people on their most honest day of living
and since that first breath... We’ll need grace that we’ve never given
I've been haunted by standard red devils and white ghosts
and it's not only when these eyes are closed
these lies are ropes that I tie down in my stomach,
but they hold this ship together tossed like leaves in this weather
and my dreams are sails that I point towards my true north,
stretched thin over my rib bones, and pray that it gets better
but it won’t won’t, at least I don’t believe it will...
so I've built a wooden heart inside this iron ship,
to sail these blood red seas and find your coasts.
don’t let these waves wash away your hopes
this war-ship is sinking, and I still believe in anchors
pulling fist fulls of rotten wood from my heart, I still believe in saviors
but I know that we are all made out of shipwrecks, every single board
washed and bound like crooked teeth on these rocky shores
so come on and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
come on and sew us together, tattered rags stained forever
we only have what we remember

I am the barely living son of a woman and man who barely made it
but we’re making it taped together on borrowed crutches and new starts
we all have the same holes in our hearts...
everything falls apart at the exact same time
that it all comes together perfectly for the next step
but my fear is this prison... that I keep locked below the main deck
I keep a key under my pillow, it’s quiet and it’s hidden
and my hopes are weapons that I’m still learning how to use right
but they’re heavy and I’m awkward...always running out of fight
so I’ve carved a wooden heart, put it in this sinking ship
hoping it would help me float for just a few more weeks
because I am made out of shipwrecks, every twisted beam
lost and found like you and me scattered out on the sea
so come on let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
come on and sew us together, just some tattered rags stained forever
we only have what we remember

My throat it still tastes like house fire and salt water
I wear this tide like loose skin, rock me to sleep
if we hold on tight we’ll hold each other together
and not just be some fools rushing to die in our sleep
all these machines will rust I promise, but we'll still be electric
shocking each other back to life
Your hand in mine, my fingers in your veins connected
our bones grown together inside
our hands entwined, my fingers in your veins braided
our spines grown stronger in time
because are church is made out of shipwrecks
from every hull these rocks have claimed
but we pick ourselves up, and try and grow better through the change
so come on yall and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief
and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach
come on and sew us together, were just tattered rags stained forever
we only have what we remember

credits

from Wooden Heart Poems, released 06 July 2010

Old

I am getting old...rapidly. As I near what is, for the average person, the middle of my life, I am prone to sadness. (Considering my not so healthy lifestyle, I am probably well past the middle!)

So, I'm doing what I do, trying not to think about it. Yet, thoughts invade against my will and swirl tirelessly through my mind.

Thirty-five. Single. Childless.

That is not a place most people envision for themselves.

I'm sure there's a point. A reason for the state of my life. Some grand master plan.

The problem I struggle with of late is that if this grand master plan leaves me at this stage of life, the stage most people graduated from at ten or more years my junior, well I am not sure I am able to happily resign myself to that. There are only two choices, resign happily trusting in His wisdom or continue into bitterness and resentment toward the One who created me and 'wrote each of my days in His book before one of them came to be'.

It's a tough place to be, tough choice to make. I admit, I don't like it :)

What It Takes

I feel as though I am falling apart. I feel like I will break into a million pieces and not ever be whole.

The only good news in this is that I am letting myself fall apart....for the most part. There are days where I claw and scratch and do anything I can think of to make the pain stop for a moment. Most days though, I'm just letting it happen. I joined BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) and this morning before the lecture started I began to cry. So I went out in the foyer and cried through the entire thing. They pipe it through the speakers so I was able to listen to all of it as tears silently streamed down my face for an hour. If this is what it takes.....

I called a pregnancy center in my town and have signed up for a weekend thing they do to help women who have had abortions find healing. I had to go to an interview for that Monday night. It was short but the questions were tough. I left there and went to a friends house and once her husband went to sleep I completely broke down. Never in my life before have I allowed myself to fall apart in front of another human being. Sure there have been a few quiet tears that I couldn't suck up.....but never all out weeping, sobbing, heaving cries. It was strange and I still can't quite believe it happened. If this is what it takes....

The fourteenth anniversary of my abortion is next Monday. Now with all the memories filling my head, some that have always been there, some newly faced and severely painful, my heart is feeling that it's had about all that it can take. Fact of the matter is though, as bad as I feel now, knowing the worst that can happen is it kills me really doesn't sound all that bad. If that's what it takes....

How I Feel

I found this online today and it so describes the inner workings of my brain that I felt the need to share it. It will probably give you a headache, welcome to my world.

Fear strikes me from all corners of my being. What, what is it that I am not seeing? Is not what I perceive what is really real? Why is it that I am the only one who sees what I see, just the way that I do? What does this mean? Surely this is what is wrong with the world right? I mean it can't be my problem. I am not afraid. I am not scared or weak or vulnerable. I need you..... NO!! ....I am strong and I don't need you. If you let me need you I won't want you anymore. And if you say I can't have you then I've got to have you. If you let me have you then I don't want you anymore. I want you when you don't want me and I need you when you won't help me. It is the biting and the pain of this cold distance that I know that somehow is familiar and is the feeling that I need to give me the illusion of safety. If I were truly safe I'd be exposed and not safe at all. Get away by coming closer and come closer by getting away. I am exposed most when I hide and hidden when I try to be who I think I am.

Feeling alone, again, abandoned as always, alone, again. I am everyone and everyone is me. Who am I again? Oh yea, that person, and that person, and this person, and this person. Where does that leave me when I am alone? Who am I then? Do I cease to exist if I am not in the company of someone off of whom I can bounce my existence and from whom all of my validation must come?

What is wrong with the world? Why can't they see my pain? Don't they know how incredibly much I hurt? Can't they see that I need them to hold some of this pain for me, validate it, and take it away; for my soul runneth over with agony. Why should I have to bear my own agony? It is not my fault. I didn't do this to me. I didn't choose to hurt like this. I am beside myself with all of this pain and anger and grief as is an infant whose mother is angry with him or her. What do I do with that angry face? It is not acceptance, it is rejecting me.....but I NEED it.....what am I to do? I don't know what to do so I put it beside me. Whatever it is, I leave it to sit there....and it builds over the course of a lifetime. It builds and it always hurts. It hurts even when I don't feel it at all. I need to get what I need. I'll die if I don't. I'll just die. I am dying to live and in my attempts to live I die.

And so I have remained trapped inside this isolated, and insulated place of youth stunted in my emotional growth. I am a victim. It is not my fault. I hurt and I hurt and I hurt. Why don't you care? Why don't you care? Make it go away. Make it stop, just love me from over there. Love me, but don't you dare really care. It would hurt too much if you were to care. I wouldn't understand who you were caring for or about because I don't know who I am. I hate who I am and what I am. I hate whoever the hell I am. I have come to hate what it is that I might be, or sometimes am. I don't like the voided vacuum within which I feel like my being exists under a glass bubble. So close, yet so far away from others am I. So close, yet so far away, from whoever I am, am I. Who are you trying to care about? What does that mean, that you want to care about me? It would mean that I needed you to care. I don't need you to care but I am dying for you to care. Still, care from over there and don't act like I need you.

Rescue me, by leaving me alone...it'll kill me. Leave me alone but rescue me. I need you to rescue me if I am to live. I am not alive. I am dead. I am dead when I try to be alive. I am alive when I act like I'm so dead I can't feel anything. There is such a sharp feel to the pain of numbness. Feeling the absence of myself like this. Where do the feelings go? Where does all of that pain hide? I dissociate from all that hurts. I give it to others. It is their fault, and their problem, not mine. Help me, while you leave me alone. Leave me alone while you help me. NOW!

I am the center of the universe. Yes I am. I am it and it is me. I will act this way too, if I feel like it. No, you can't win. I will win. I'll get you coming and I'll get you going and there will be no way that you can win. I must always win. I need to control because I feel so helplessly out of control, but you can't know that. You can't know that okay, you don't know that about me. I don't know that about me. I don't know you because I don't know me. You can't know me either. No, I won't let you in to a place that I have yet to gain access to. No, me first.

Who am I? I thought I knew just a minute ago. Then, suddenly nothing felt familiar anymore. Nothing felt okay anymore: nothing felt SAFE anymore - nothing felt as it had before. Why does this happen and what does it mean? What do you mean you don't know? You are supposed to know. I expect you to know. And if I expect it then I have a right to demand it from you. Don't go asking me for anything, NO, it depends how I feel, and what I believe in any given moment...you just never can know cause I never know what I'll do or say or feel. Every moment changes and shifts from one to the next. What is real, what is truth, whether or not I think I can take care of myself or what I feel, or right or wrong, from minute to minute changes, so I really just don't know. I don't care to know. Don't bother me about it. Leave me alone, just stay here. And be quiet while you talk to me. Talk to me silently. Words can hurt. Don't be too quiet in your silence though, because silence can kill a soul. I know, it killed mine over and over again. Dead, time and time again, risen hopes, only to fall and to die, unanswered, arms outstretched, never reached for, never grasped, arms that hung outstretched while a little girl screamed in terror and fear and had more need than any infant could possibly bear to hold. Arms...that had to hold themsleves, suspended in mid air, left alone, ignored. Arms that would take another 36 years to ever dare to reach out again. So hold me, and rock me -- rock me to stillness -- gently okay, just don't touch me really, you know?

Truth, you want to talk truth? Whose truth, yours or mine? Is there a truth between? No, my truth is truth. Your idea of truth is a lie. I don't lie. If I don't lie and our truths aren't the same that makes you a liar. Does so....just does. If I am right then you are wrong. Yes you are. No I'm not. If I am good then you are bad if you don't agree with me and or see things my way. My way isn't just right, it is the only way. What matters is what I want and need. That's my truth. And my truth is the truth. Don't you even try to lie to me, don't...

I know things but they seem fleeting. What is real and important one minute is fragile and or gone and or misunderstood-misperceived and misinterpreted by me the next minute. I don't know why? You were here a minute ago and it mattered. But then you left. While you were gone for three minutes and fifty-four seconds (clock time -- forever in my own sense of the reality of time) I forgot that you mattered to me and now I find it incredibly impossible to believe that you could love me and leave me just like that for three minutes and fifty-four seconds...to wait and to suffer like that, alone, isolated and afraid. Don't ever do that again. Promise me! Do you have any idea what you put me through? My parents left me like that. It's not alright for you to just be you and not be me -- while I'm being you too. I know things seem fleeting. Things keep changing. I can't hold anymore than I am whether I am holding anything or not.

You live in a "big picture." Life, so I am told unfolds in some "big picture" of reality. I live in millions of little pictures. Millions of pieces of reality. Snap shots from the whole, fragmented seconds of minutes that seem to encompass hours. I can't tell what is going on around me like you do. No, it does not make sense to me. Part of this picture lined up with part of that one...what am I supposed to see? What can I know from these mixed up jigsaw puzzle messages? I get part of it. I don't understand the rest. First you seem to make sense, then you don't so I get angry and frustrated. In one part of the picture I care about you but in another part of the picture I remember out of context when you said this or that and then I can't trust you anymore, or not until the next moment when two picture pieces fit briefly together. This is my experience. So one minute I want you close, from a distance and the next minute I want you distantly-close. This is what is going on inside of me. I don't want to hurt you like I do I just don't know how to make sense of all of these jumbled messages and fragmented pictures that bombard my mind constantly with images and thoughts that do not fit together, not now, not ever, hardly ever anyway. If memories are pictures of the way things were (or the way things are?) then my memories, like strewn screams, echo to a voided-abyss in a cavernous canyon. Imagine all of that sound overlapping itself. Could you hear me then, any better than I can hear you now?

Ms. A.J. Mahari - February 29, 2000