teaching

They looked at me, eyes big wild crumbs and full of challenge. I love that look. It pulls deep down from inside me, this string of information and the hardest answers to give. That forced feeding of information makes me feel alive. I prefer the older crowd's type of challenge though to that of a middle schooler, I have discovered. It is far too easy to believe the kids should listen to me simply because I am older. That's dumb. I knew it was dumb when I was their age and I don't blame them for thinking the same thing right now. I appreciate the way adults look at me, seeking knowledge and trusting what I say but also challenging me to give them the right answers and to take care of them. They rely in a way that is more demanding, less hopeless whereas the kids rely on me without knowing how or why or what for, all they know is they need a hug and to yell a whole bunch. Sometimes I'm all arms and ears and good words so it's okay, but I'm a person too. A person with a lot of shit going on. A person who is asked to transition from adult needs to child needs with no break for me in between because I need time to travel. A person with her own shit happening in both places and before and after and all around with barely any time for herself. A person who thinks that it is important to give as much of herself as possible. Why can't I keep doing both of these things? Why can't I keep giving myself to people and wearing myself out? Can't I just drink more coffee? Sleep a little less? Take time for myself at night once everyone is asleep and the snoring next to me has steadied so I can pull out my computer and write a little bit? When do I get a break? a hug? some time to yell?

Where's my shoulder? I guess I have two of my own. But both are weary. I have two ears and both are full, my head is aching and my eyes are closing, it's barely evening. My heart is exhausted and my energy zapped. I've spent too long expending it.

sometimes i get sad

sometimes i get sad, too sad. sometimes i get really angry and make things up and i get confused and think my brain doesn't work right because sometimes i think i don't know who i am. maybe i have just forgotten though. i have this obsession with knowing who i am and i think i need to take a break from all that thinking about it and just feel it. i am who i am. nothing more nothing less. i am who i am and how i am and it's right and good and perfect because it's all i've got. i'm not hurting anyone with how i am, at least i don't think i am and i hope i'm not. i have people who care about me and like who i am. i can always be better but i think i'm doing a good job right now.

more action though. definitely more action. i need to stand up a bit more. sit down a lot less. and do some shit. i need to spend more time alone i think. i really know that actually. i do need more time alone.

ZEST!

when did i lose my zest? my stupid creativity? that zeal to do dumb shit like make a big huge board game and wear stupid dumb costumes to regular parties and carry toys in my purse for friends who need a pick me up? WTF where did i go!?


I just want to come back.

my family

this is my family, my uncle dennis, my aunt jan and my dad, and their two parents my nana and papa. i was looking at this image earlier thinking how beautiful these people looked and how real. i don't know if it's the lighting in the photograph or that they've been my family for so long that i've never seen them in a different perspective but i like it. they look good and i'm glad to share genes with these intelligent beautiful cultured individuals. family is my favorite thing, the whole concept and idea and everything about it makes me feel right and good.


------i just got an idea. for the story i have in my collection of the woman who loses her husband and has a 2 year old. what if it's closer to kristi's story, what if this isn't a WOMAN but a young woman and what if he's not her husband and she doesn't get anything because he never made a will but this is her child's father... and I should really start changing the way that child talks to be more realistic, more like sadie. i love that i want to fix it now, that i'm getting deep back into my book. i love that i'm plunging. here we go. what a rabbit hole.

and here i find myself

hiding between the rock and the hard place, or rather the pillow and the smile. no, that's not right. between the grass and the ocean? the shell and the fish? one stagnant, one moving; one soft, one depthful; one mobile, one - a hard place. Here I have found myself and I am fairly positive I have belayed myself into this position. It doesn't hurt for me, doesn't feel uncomfortable most of the time, and I'm fairly certain that most of the time it is good albeit confusing. Here I am, regardless. The mobility of things around me and the potential mobility of people around me causes my legs to either remain stagnant or do that thing like in cartoons - they wind around in circles as though I'm running fast but I'm really not going anywhere just using a lot of energy. I make a lot of noise. I've realized that I require opinions and advice and aid in my decision making. I'm going to stop that. I need to meditate more and quiet the voices, here only mine and feel the truthful answer of what I really want. I need to hear that resonating and telling me what I should do rather than accepting everyone's opinions as a compilation of "life answers: the greatest hits." The water keeps rising and their answers don't help it lower any but when I hit a moment of clarity my lips are able to purse above that salted wave and suck in a bit more air. The goal is to find a rock to perch on. Then, to make that rock a sail and ride it through the rest of my life on my decisions.

Things I'd like to do in some sort of time frame that is at this moment indiscernible:
-travel a whole hell of a lot, before children, before a husband, on my own, and then with those people because traveling is good with love
-have one more really truly passionate great immense love (who are we kidding, probably more than one)
-find the path that will lead to the rest of ever
-FINISH THAT BOOK. THEN START A NEW ONE. SEND IT OUT TO PUBLISHERS.SERIOUSLY.NOW.
-be published. in anything. see my name on a page that is not one i printed.
-continue to allow my heart to guide me, it's been doing a pretty good job so far
-realize when i need to take a break. and take it. it's okay to slack off.
-look up at the stars more often, they're pretty great.
-make more friends, more real friendships, and hold onto them.
-eat more oatmeal
-less skittles ...
-learn to decorate like an adult
-find a job that will give me money to decorate like an adult
-find a job that will pay enough in money and passion
-learn when enough is enough
-learn that i can't save everyone. no matter how hard i try and that saving myself isn't selfish.
-cuddle more during the day.
-think about growing my hair out, decide i don't want to and cut it even shorter.
-get more tattoos, i know mom, i know, but i like them.
-do the things i wanted to when i was 10 years old. (find that list)

there are far more things I'd like to do but i think i can accomplish many of these this year and I have to go get ready for work. Yesterday I didn't want to leave to go to my other job. It's hard. It's hard to be responsible for people other than me. I don't want to be dishonorable but I just don't know if I can do it anymore. I'm not sure at all.

don't discount your dreams

quitting is going to europe for three months and that's not even quitting and you have the option to do that, don't tell yourself you don't, you can do that right now if you want to.

working a full time position and not saving people's kids is not quitting by any means. you've worked hard for a long time, take a break. you've earned it.

-thanks dad.

Morning grumps

Without even knowing it he has created a routine for me to get me writing again. To get into a routine for the first time in fact. And he mutters under his breath the whole time about it but that's because he has no idea how I benefit. We wake up at 5:30 and he says "I just got home and I have to go to work again? I need a new job" Every morning. "I need a new job." Every night. "I need a new job." We've been looking. Jobs are hard. This morning we got up, I told him I'd smother him so he'd suffocate and not have to go to work and as he said "do it" he kissed me and we sat up in bed. The streets are orange at that hour. Orange from snow and lights that reflect upon it, orange from left over drunken stumbles and smiles that turned into something else whether pursed lips or scowls. We get in the car and the whole time he grumbles "I need a new job" "is it really that temperature? It must be colder" Both of us bundled in our winter gear, I can't put my arms down, hardly. We park in the lot where I drop him off and he kisses me longer than usual this morning. Longer and slower like if he keeps kissing me he won't have to go to work, like I'm the line that will pull him from the water. I can only hope my existence for him will be that profound. So I kissed him longer and slower, harder, putting all my caring and good hopes into his mouth. I tell him to try to have a good day. He gets out of the car and starts his walk and I think to myself "I could have parked closer" but then if I had, would he have kissed me that way? "home" that's what he called my place. His things are in my car. I know it's hard but he's getting used to the idea, I think. The idea that I might not be the worst, that I might be good, that I might not hurt him the way he's been hurt before that maybe I've been hurt that way too and I know how rude it is to do to someone. I think he's getting used to the idea that I care a whole lot.

so here I am. taking advantage of this opportunity to write and get into a routine. I'm not sure what I want to do with my life ... I keep telling myself I'll tackle that problem later ... social work. I think. I think I know that much. how or when and if now or later is completely beyond me. This is not something I should deal with right now. Maybe tomorrow.

snow fall

all i'd like to do today is sit in bed and look at stuff online and contemplate what i should and should not spend money on and download new music and get cds so i can make people mixes and set up my idisk to back up my photos and daydream and watch movies.

yesterday was the best day off ever. monday funday. did nothing important and had so much fun doing it.

i think things are going really well. i feel good about it all.

death

i remember now
in my dream a good friend died.

maybe it was my past beliefs dying since she and i no longer talk? maybe it was my childish ways dying?


..... oh dreams why so elusive?

dreaming

last night i had this dream in one of my dream places, it's a pretty intricate dream place that i won't get into right now. it grew over time and revealed more to me and as i got older i realized that my dream places are connected. so I was in this one part of it that is really 3 parts and when I was younger it was scary but this dream was interesting because i wasn't younger in it and i wasn't scared, i was my current age and i wasn't trapped i was "just visiting." visiting my uncle, i think that's what it was. and it was an entirely new perspective on the whole place, not scary at all, i saw it like you see shadows when you're older, shadows you thought could swallow you when you were younger (am i the only one who actually believed that? wild imaginations). it was interesting and revealing and no longer scary to see things as they really are. it made me wonder if that's what I'm doing in my life right now. Seeing things as they really are rather than glossing over with a smile and saying it'll be great! you can't force people to want what they don't want even if you yourself are amazing. you can't force people to want something or to change or to be who you want them to be. that's a bad thing to admit, but it's true that i had done that. have done that. for quite some time. it's done now, time to be over with that. jealousy is an ugly animal.

there was something else but i don't remember it right now.

oh woe is me

I'm so down in the dumps it's stupid. I need some proactivity but instead I'd like to just fall asleep for a little while and avoid it.

I know the hand is there to catch me but I hate that I need it sometimes. I know you're there to help me out but I want to do it. I want to be able to do it and I can't. Do you know how frustrating that is? Do you know how frustrating it is to be this way, to feel this way, to have experienced the things I have and to have no one to lean on and talk to but myself? It's overwhelming and having to deal with your shit too makes it even more overwhelming. There are ways around being the go to person, everybody, even for yourself, said Buddy Wakefield but he forgot to include what those ways were and how to acquire them.

Just a year ago everything was so easy. There was so much hope. So much love and excitement. I was free a year ago, let J go and flew on by myself only to find someone else and here I find myself, alone alone alone. Maybe I'll start working on my book again. That might make me better.

Here's to hoping. Here's to shmucks and being one.

a little advice

here's what i'm gonna tell ya and you don't have to respond, just sit there and listen for a minute because this shit is important:

hope is for suckers.

reading in the park is better with someone else than alone.

sunshine is never as bright as you want it to be.

the grass is green no matter where you are you're just not looking at it right.

bon iver is for broken hearts and only for broken hearts.

promises are the worst and sometimes it's better to ignore everyone else.

being alone is lonely unless you like who you are.

you're bored because you're boring.

hope is for suckers. suckers who believe that they deserve good things and not to be hurt without realizing everyone gets hurt, everyone knows that pain.

let's drink wine tonight and laugh, not be sad at all, sit on the floor and talk about real shit and laugh just like we used to. oh i just need some fun i think. especially before the work week marathon begins, no day off for two weeks starts tomorrow. something's gotta give here doesn't it?