The birds are beginning to sing outside my window. It is their new morning; it is still my patient wait for sleep to finally come.
But there is no room for sleep on this night. Not with what the wind is blowing through my hair. Not with what the tide is washing up onto my feet. Not in this present lifetime.
Tracy Chapman whispers across the hum of of my computer. I can hear my cat sigh deeply in his sleep.
With all the world asleep and dawn so full of hope, I found the bright light of reality flash across my path like a passing car on a moonless night. I am momentarily blinded and find myself in denial of the words on my screen.
"I wanted to tell you to not come back... because it isn't safe"
He speaks of the only place I've called home in more years than I can begin to remember.The place I planted my roots.The place I allowed my heart to grow.The place I bared my soul for God and Man to see. The place I ran from when the world turned black and nothing was safe anymore.
The place I've been packing my bags to hesitantly revisit. The place I couldn't live without... until his words appeared.
It's funny... We can cling so tightly to a hope, a dream, a prayer we think will save us and some are even willing to follow it to their death. But he said he was an ally -- my ally. And for whatever reason known only to God, he felt compelled to let me know that at 4 in the morning when the sun is stretching from lazy slumber and rolling over for "just five more minutes..." I am not alone. I am safe. Someone else is looking out for me. Nothing in this world is guaranteed. Not even Allies. But those... those are worth dying for, even unto yourself.
There will be no sleep tonight. But for the first time in a long while, it will be safe.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Friday, May 25, 2012
Grey Matter(s) of the Heart and Soul
It's hard to believe it's already been two weeks since the doctor said the words "It might be a tumour."
I mean, it's not really the kind of thing you expect to hear on a random Friday afternoon. I've been having blind episodes off and on in my right eye for about a year now and despite a proverbial brush off from a doctor last year, things didn't improve. In fact, they're 300% worse. I have new doctors now and they all seem very concerned.
It ended up not being a tumour but I wish it was. It's hard to play "The Gladness Game" when you have no idea what's wrong. The doctor says the nerves in my eye are clustered too tightly together. They could someday pinch together and cause permanent blindness. For now, it just feels like a pencil is constantly being shoved in my eye. It's scary. The most important things I do in life happen behind a camera or with a pen and poetry book or journal. But the Gladness Game continues nonetheless. I can choose to be scared and cry, or I can choose to ignore the elements of unknown, confused looks of medical specialists and fear of how much this will financially devastate me when it's over or I can find all the joy in it. Silver linings are sometimes nigh impossible to find but they're always there.
Thus far, I've managed to find at least one gladness, one "happy" each day. An older cousin of mine who I always wanted to know better but felt too awkward and shy to reach out to as a little kid has sudden been in touch with me on a regular basis. We're on opposite ends of our 30s but suddenly the age gap isn't so scary anymore. She told me in an email that she loves me and wants to become closer. It was like sunshine in my heart. :)
My best friend from 3rd grade who lives on the other side of the world has been messaging me every few days. She's praying for me and she's worried about me. We lost touch for almost 15 years, found each other on the internet and have discovered that playground promises of "friends forever" really do continue. That was like a rainbow across my sky.
One of my coworkers discreetly left a card of encouragement on my desk telling me he was praying for me and that I do a good job at work. And even now, days later in the middle of the night, it still makes me tear up because it reminded me that despite being the female minority and trying so hard to be tough and strong enough to keep up with the rest of the guys, at least one person realizes I'm still a girl and whether or not I'd ever let them see or suspect it at work, girls cry when they get scared. And it's nice to know one one of those unbreakableshakeable guys wouldn't think less of me if I couldn't always keep up a brave face.
I have headaches and pain during the day and I'm wide awake at night, but I have old time radio shows of Fibber McGee and Molly to make me giggle when I am finally able to drift off to sleep.
It's warm enough to sleep with the windows open, I can hear the faint whistle of trains off in the distance, and if I walk outside, I can see the moon shining its reflection on the bay.
Maybe life isn't perfect and scary monsters are lurking in closets and under beds... but there are always reasons to smile. There have to be. What good are eyes if they can only cry? What good are dreams if you never believe they'll come true? But most of all, what good is this life if you only stay on paved roads? Predictability is safe but we are each gifted in ways that call our hearts off the main path.
My heart lives in the wilderness. It's never been safe, it's never been familiar, but my God, it's always a beautiful adventure. I'd like to think that if God took my sight from me and people asked me why it happened I could smile and say, "I saw the world. And I saw so much of it that there was nothing left to see."
What a wonderful joy that would be! :)
I mean, it's not really the kind of thing you expect to hear on a random Friday afternoon. I've been having blind episodes off and on in my right eye for about a year now and despite a proverbial brush off from a doctor last year, things didn't improve. In fact, they're 300% worse. I have new doctors now and they all seem very concerned.
It ended up not being a tumour but I wish it was. It's hard to play "The Gladness Game" when you have no idea what's wrong. The doctor says the nerves in my eye are clustered too tightly together. They could someday pinch together and cause permanent blindness. For now, it just feels like a pencil is constantly being shoved in my eye. It's scary. The most important things I do in life happen behind a camera or with a pen and poetry book or journal. But the Gladness Game continues nonetheless. I can choose to be scared and cry, or I can choose to ignore the elements of unknown, confused looks of medical specialists and fear of how much this will financially devastate me when it's over or I can find all the joy in it. Silver linings are sometimes nigh impossible to find but they're always there.
Thus far, I've managed to find at least one gladness, one "happy" each day. An older cousin of mine who I always wanted to know better but felt too awkward and shy to reach out to as a little kid has sudden been in touch with me on a regular basis. We're on opposite ends of our 30s but suddenly the age gap isn't so scary anymore. She told me in an email that she loves me and wants to become closer. It was like sunshine in my heart. :)
My best friend from 3rd grade who lives on the other side of the world has been messaging me every few days. She's praying for me and she's worried about me. We lost touch for almost 15 years, found each other on the internet and have discovered that playground promises of "friends forever" really do continue. That was like a rainbow across my sky.
One of my coworkers discreetly left a card of encouragement on my desk telling me he was praying for me and that I do a good job at work. And even now, days later in the middle of the night, it still makes me tear up because it reminded me that despite being the female minority and trying so hard to be tough and strong enough to keep up with the rest of the guys, at least one person realizes I'm still a girl and whether or not I'd ever let them see or suspect it at work, girls cry when they get scared. And it's nice to know one one of those unbreakableshakeable guys wouldn't think less of me if I couldn't always keep up a brave face.
I have headaches and pain during the day and I'm wide awake at night, but I have old time radio shows of Fibber McGee and Molly to make me giggle when I am finally able to drift off to sleep.
It's warm enough to sleep with the windows open, I can hear the faint whistle of trains off in the distance, and if I walk outside, I can see the moon shining its reflection on the bay.
Maybe life isn't perfect and scary monsters are lurking in closets and under beds... but there are always reasons to smile. There have to be. What good are eyes if they can only cry? What good are dreams if you never believe they'll come true? But most of all, what good is this life if you only stay on paved roads? Predictability is safe but we are each gifted in ways that call our hearts off the main path.
My heart lives in the wilderness. It's never been safe, it's never been familiar, but my God, it's always a beautiful adventure. I'd like to think that if God took my sight from me and people asked me why it happened I could smile and say, "I saw the world. And I saw so much of it that there was nothing left to see."
What a wonderful joy that would be! :)
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Snow White's Mirror
"I just didn't want to be one of those girls who were made fun of..."
Words I didn't know could make me burst into tears coming from the beautiful best friend who everyone loved in high school. I guess everyone has their own Snow White at some time or another. No matter how many times you look in the mirror, you're still not the beautiful one. But beauty fades. And if you're lucky, people don't.
It's funny how insignificant beauty seems to a woman of 90 and how it can mean life or death to a 16-year-old. I keep hearing those words echo in my head. "one of those girls." The ones who get made fun of. The words feel like a knife in the back thinking about how many times I was made fun of. But that wasn't the end of the sentence. She had my back. Even when I wasn't around to know what was being said. It's like a knife and a hug at the same time. I already know what was said to my face. I shudder to think what she defended me against. But to think the beautiful one, the popular one everyone wanted to hang out with, she defended me. Not out of pity. Not out of charity. She did it because we were friends. And it's not flattery because she was beautiful and everyone loved her. It's honour because until tonight, I spent the last 15 years not knowing what happened when I wasn't around. When she was. When she thought I was someone worth looking up to and I spent all my days looking down at the ground wondering why I couldn't be someone more like her.
I wish I'd had the option to be exempt from the elite classification of "One of those girls." It breaks my heart. Not because I can't let go of the past, but because I still get made fun of. The thing is, I just learned to stop caring. If people truly do fear things they don't understand then maybe being "scary" isn't as bad as the label makes it sound.
I saw my eight-year-old niece over Easter vacation. She wanted blue streaks in her hair just like me. She thought I was pretty and cool. We got extensions from the beauty store and I put them in her hair before she went outside to play. She wasn't outside on the playground for more than five minutes before she came running back inside, upset that some boy made fun of her. I was so mad! Mad at him. Mad at her for caring. Mad at myself for being "one of those girls" and not stopping my niece from putting herself in the same path of my former footsteps.
But she went back outside anyway and kept playing and I thought to myself, "Kid, someday some little girl is gonna want to be like you regardless of the cost and you'll understand how loved and proud I feel right now." And if that wasn't enough to melt a heart, my barely-three-year-old niece decided she had to have blue hair too. Straight blue streaks don't exactly fit in with honey brown ringlets. But when she smiled up at me and said "I look like you" all I could think was "Kid, you look the way I feel 99% of the time. Nothing matches and everyone can tell, but you rock it like a hurricane of awesome."
It's hard to look up to a kid that's barely tall enough to hug your knees but somehow it managed to happen. And I'm glad. Because when you're three, the wicked witch never wins and "being Snow White" simply means putting on a dress, any dress, and declaring yourself a beautiful princess. I hope she never stops being one of those girls. And maybe someday, I could be more like her.
I don't know why being made fun of was such a big fear. Being hurt sucks. But I've broken bones that hurt far worse than words, I've lived through hells far worse than not being pretty and I've survived much more important "trials" than not being popular. I guess on some root level none of us wants to think a mirror would look us in the eye and say "you're not good enough for me." But unlike the fairytale, the only person looking back at me... is me.
Today my boyfriend noticed that I had on two shades of blue eyeshadow... that matched the two shades of blue in my hair. He'd probably be the first to stand in line to declare me as "one of those girls"... You know, the ones who never match, stick out in a pitch black room and couldn't care less what the world thinks. I didn't acquire confidence and beauty with age. I'm just pretending to be three... and free... while I continue the journey of the evolution of me.
Words I didn't know could make me burst into tears coming from the beautiful best friend who everyone loved in high school. I guess everyone has their own Snow White at some time or another. No matter how many times you look in the mirror, you're still not the beautiful one. But beauty fades. And if you're lucky, people don't.
It's funny how insignificant beauty seems to a woman of 90 and how it can mean life or death to a 16-year-old. I keep hearing those words echo in my head. "one of those girls." The ones who get made fun of. The words feel like a knife in the back thinking about how many times I was made fun of. But that wasn't the end of the sentence. She had my back. Even when I wasn't around to know what was being said. It's like a knife and a hug at the same time. I already know what was said to my face. I shudder to think what she defended me against. But to think the beautiful one, the popular one everyone wanted to hang out with, she defended me. Not out of pity. Not out of charity. She did it because we were friends. And it's not flattery because she was beautiful and everyone loved her. It's honour because until tonight, I spent the last 15 years not knowing what happened when I wasn't around. When she was. When she thought I was someone worth looking up to and I spent all my days looking down at the ground wondering why I couldn't be someone more like her.
I wish I'd had the option to be exempt from the elite classification of "One of those girls." It breaks my heart. Not because I can't let go of the past, but because I still get made fun of. The thing is, I just learned to stop caring. If people truly do fear things they don't understand then maybe being "scary" isn't as bad as the label makes it sound.
I saw my eight-year-old niece over Easter vacation. She wanted blue streaks in her hair just like me. She thought I was pretty and cool. We got extensions from the beauty store and I put them in her hair before she went outside to play. She wasn't outside on the playground for more than five minutes before she came running back inside, upset that some boy made fun of her. I was so mad! Mad at him. Mad at her for caring. Mad at myself for being "one of those girls" and not stopping my niece from putting herself in the same path of my former footsteps.
But she went back outside anyway and kept playing and I thought to myself, "Kid, someday some little girl is gonna want to be like you regardless of the cost and you'll understand how loved and proud I feel right now." And if that wasn't enough to melt a heart, my barely-three-year-old niece decided she had to have blue hair too. Straight blue streaks don't exactly fit in with honey brown ringlets. But when she smiled up at me and said "I look like you" all I could think was "Kid, you look the way I feel 99% of the time. Nothing matches and everyone can tell, but you rock it like a hurricane of awesome."
It's hard to look up to a kid that's barely tall enough to hug your knees but somehow it managed to happen. And I'm glad. Because when you're three, the wicked witch never wins and "being Snow White" simply means putting on a dress, any dress, and declaring yourself a beautiful princess. I hope she never stops being one of those girls. And maybe someday, I could be more like her.
I don't know why being made fun of was such a big fear. Being hurt sucks. But I've broken bones that hurt far worse than words, I've lived through hells far worse than not being pretty and I've survived much more important "trials" than not being popular. I guess on some root level none of us wants to think a mirror would look us in the eye and say "you're not good enough for me." But unlike the fairytale, the only person looking back at me... is me.
Today my boyfriend noticed that I had on two shades of blue eyeshadow... that matched the two shades of blue in my hair. He'd probably be the first to stand in line to declare me as "one of those girls"... You know, the ones who never match, stick out in a pitch black room and couldn't care less what the world thinks. I didn't acquire confidence and beauty with age. I'm just pretending to be three... and free... while I continue the journey of the evolution of me.
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