Poetical Musings in the Continual Aftermath of Clarity

I found an old picture of you in your favorite shirt

And I realized, I really miss that shirt...

Not because it was your favorite
or because it reminds me of you

but because I always thought it would look better on me.

And it occurs to me now,
Maybe that's the only reason I kept thinking it was love.

I hope your shirt fits awkwardly

and forever reminds you of the girl who walked away.

:)

Pine Needles in February

But here's the thing --
I never wanted a fake Christmas tree,
I only consented because I thought it might lead to true love.
In the end, I realized that settling for anything fake
would only lead to a lifetime of consistent fakeness.

I tried to pretend I didn't need my coloured lights and mismatched ornaments,
things you considered "un-classy"...

And maybe I'm not a modern classy girl but dammit,
I have to have something real left to live for!

You never appreciated my records.
Said it was music of your parents generation; stupid, boring
annoying.
I spun circles around dreams and listened to the fireplace crackle of
love on vinyl
and all you could say was "stupid."
Because that's classy talk...

If we don't learn from the past, what do we gain for the future?
Your music wasn't real.
Everything birthed from electric simulations of instruments across the room,
everything having to sound newer and better than what came before.
It's all too much to live up to.

What's wrong with familiarity?
What's wrong with the comfort of remembering exactly where you were,
exactly what you wore
and exactly who you were with
each time the record flips?

What's wrong with predictable happiness and love?

Sure, you like my style now.
You call me "vintage" in this indie world,
say I've got an "eye for the old" and a
"quirky" sense of style.
It's all great from a hundred miles away but at your core
you're more dead than I'll ever be alive.

You have perfection plastic wrapped in airtight containers of a
carefully controlled life.

I'm still frantically sweeping up pine needles in February.

But you, sir,

have forgotten what it means to dance...

And Lipgloss will Rule the World

There are few things I've imagined in my life, artistically, that have turned out exactly as I imagined them in my head. Even fewer are ideas that turn out better than I imagined.

Tonight is one of those nights I wish I had a refrigerator big enough to hang my computer on.

I've worked so hard for so many years and suddenly it's like an explosion of everything I ever wanted to be.

I've been standing here dumbfounded for weeks trying to figure out what it all means.

In college, my favorite English professor wrote on my end-of-the-semester self-evaluation (in which I ripped apart any redeeming qualities I had)that I was being too hard on myself and then he added the following quote:
"Break the mold and lean toward the glass blower's breath."

I've moved so many times that I can no longer find the original assignment or remember who he attributed the quote to but it was one of those moments that changed my life then and there.

He's the last of the "big four" on my list to track down. I used to spend hours after class sitting across from his desk showing him the poetry and songs I wrote and telling him how I wanted to change the world. After showing him one particular song I was especially proud of, he handed the lyric sheet back to me and asked "What do you plan to do with this?" I told him I wanted to use it to make a difference in the world and he said "You have to figure out how you're going to do that first."

Well Larry, I might not have made it as a radio star but tonight I made something really great. And I sent it to someone who will send it to other people and by lunchtime, it will have made a difference.

Maybe not a global impact like ending world hunger, but as the band Ms. Led says "A small change is still change."

It frustrates me that people don't get to see the depth of impact their footprints left in my life sometimes. But of all the times I ever needed to be set free, Larry spoke the words in the exact moment I was ready to fly.

How awesome is that?

The Beauty Queen Rockstar Hypothesis

In a world full of so much devastation and disappointment, you'd think the thing I'd fear the most would be failure. But it's not. I fear success.

All my life I've been told I was "special"... "created differently" and "set apart by God for something really big."

All my life I assumed these were merely polite Christian sayings that adults bestowed on children for matters of self-esteem and truly embracing the lyrics of "Jesus Loves Me" so as not to lose the up and coming generation to peer pressure and self-destruction.

All my life, I was sold a lie.

I don't know who or what inferred these comments were sunshine up my metaphorical dress but I've lived a life in fear of success because I believed so much of the encouragement I received was thinner than air. And how can one build a foundation on that?

I learned to live within my means, below the ceiling but above the floor. I've stepped up the ladder a few inches but never reached the top on purpose.
If anything, time has been a sad and cheated lover who has put up graciously with my limitations and not complained a bit. However, floating is a terrible way to walk and I'm finally tired of tucking my wings under my jacket each morning.

I'm a sell-out. I've cheated God, I've cheated the world around me and I've cheated the ones who truly believed in me. In bits and pieces over time, I've touched my toes to the water to see what it would be like if I gave 100% of myself and each time was met with success. That scares me. Because if everything I touch turns to gold and everything I attempt I achieve, where does that leave the voice of the world? The one that says "Don't try. You might mess it all up." Who even owned that voice?

I'm always at my best when I'm far from home. I'm told by more people that I'm beautiful, given more business opportunities, I make more friends, even my hair shines brighter. Sadly, it's the "no one's gonna know" effect. The belief that I can give all of myself if no one's around to witness it later down the line. The Allie I save for others and keep tucked away with the Christmas decorations. The girl who only appears in a sparkly party dress once a year and when the clock strikes midnight, we kiss her and bid her goodnight.

Why should I not be that girl every day? What crime would I truly commit?

The fun and scary thing is, this is my year. This one was set aside specifically for me and if I give anything less than all of myself, I'm only hurting me. It's a heady thought.

I'm impulsive by nature. I move like a comet - unpredictable and perpetually on the move. I was never born to be a constant moon with steady eyes waiting to escape the sun's shadow. People "gaze" at the moon but they "watch" comets. That alone implies a life and vitality that isn't a common trait. No one told comets they're average. Why then am I?

As a part of a New Year's Resolution experiment, I decided to give myself heart and soul to this year. More devoted in love than Romeo and Juliet, more wild than Studio 54 and more life changing than a journey on the Mayflower.

This marks the beginning of week six.
Thus far, life has been perfect. It's a little terrifying.
I keep hearing this voice saying I am undeserving of high self-esteem, commendable beauty, successful careers and wild love.

But who is this voice? I've known it all my life and never stopped to ask its name.

Who says I don't deserve these things? More importantly, at what point did I wake up in a world that deems it a sin to be this happy and glorified humility to live content with underachieving self loathing misery? This is not the design of my Creator.

What would happen if someone told me I was meant to be a beauty queen rockstar and I believed them? What would happen if I tried?

We've only entered week six but already I am certain: This seat belt is not strong enough for the awesome wonder of this ride.

"Goodbye limitation,
Hello liberation,
Goodbye frustration,
Hello to living my life by my design,
Breaking these chains that bind my mind,
Learning to color outside the lines."
-Jana Stanfield