will the circle be unbroken

Life at the end of a semester is something like I imagine Plath's bell jar was, or rather the motive for her crawling beneath the house, taking pills, and truly hoping not to be found. At any rate, try to understand the madness and the always-tingly-tightness of anxiety as a physical symptom - strung across the muscles of a lower back - and the lack of sleep and the gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair. That has been the last two or so weeks. Then there was my invitation for a Mother's Day weekend, which was mostly kind of okay except for the lingering anxiety and equally tingly-tightness of muscles prolonged by comparisons to my father or early afternoon drinking or the mention of a man friend. I wanted a couple of days to lavish in the freedom of my first year of grad school completed but it didn't work out that way. Tomorrow morning (earlier than I had planned for) my father, who just today compared me to my mother, is picking me up for a week long road trip to the coast of South Carolina. While a suburban is a fairly spacious vehicle, I often feel that the 250 miles between here and home is not enough area of space. If I had had the time to myself, the luxury of surfacing slowly enough to avoid the bends, I would likely not be so dreading the next 7-8 days.

It's difficult to understand what has happened over the last four months. Mom kindly pointed out that she was worried about me having spent so much time alone - a comment spawned out of one of my explanations of these new lifestyle changes. But something has changed in me. I used to be this independent before I left their house, before I had the physical escape of leaving the tumultuous energy of home. I would sit in my room and do god-knows-what for hours without being bored. I mostly recall painting in the floor, the oatmeal carpet stained multicolored with acrylic pigment, the therapy they never funded.

When the rooms here felt too silent I looked to those memories for reassurance. Then one day I was strong enough to just look forward. The unsettling part has been realizing that I have re-arrived here, that I am somehow enough and that I am content. As I was talking to a friend about this very phenomenon, she used a phrase that struck home, "false independence," as in feeling needless in the front of one's mind while holding tightly to the security that remains in him, even if he's not here. It's like her daughter - able to walk but refusing to take a step without the aid of an adult's finger gripped within her tiny fist. Maybe I've only sold myself on the hype, just like I'm supposed to, distanced myself through days upon days of the mantras, the whatever-it-takes methods of coping. In the process I have fallen in love with my little piece of the world. This house is my domain. This house that I thought I could only loathe and curse is my niche, and I kind of hate the thought of leaving my security if only for a week. Leaving means breaking all of those habits that I've built my independence on. In moments like these, on the eve of variation, I dread packing and driving away from the reliability of home. I miss him more. I feel like a traitor to the routine that keeps me from flying apart in all directions. I start to feel short of breath.

He sent a couple of pictures the other day of him Over There. His smile is still perfectly heartbreaking and his eyes and his form and his skin-just-out-of-reach, and what I first thought was how much I wanted to touch his hair. He in his uniform and my bags waiting to be packed make the earth shift underneath my steady footing. Yesterday all of this seemed so much easier, and coming full circle, it would seem that my sense of independence is completely false. I have wagered my ability to survive on the continuation of a domestic cycle of old things done in new ways and old passions reignited. I've gone back to my savior, Creation. As long as my hands are busy, as long as I can dovetail the pieces that I've made, I'm fine. You would never know how much it hurts to be apart from him - most of the time these days I don't.

i saw a modest dream, the kind that can't speak up

There is a story to tell, though it hasn't found its way through me yet. It hasn't formed the words clearly enough. They are still unfolding and forming into cohesive groups as I type. I work in phases like my father - life becoming a series of desperate love affairs quickly burning down the wicks that bore them until there is no more fuel. Maybe that's all this is too, a thing to keep me warm at night, an exciting idea whose end is deliciously unknown. Or worse perhaps, this is my True North.

I am a product of a swarm of things, but as my dad reminded me the other day, "I guess you can't take the country out of the girl." Part of me cringes and withdraws from those words, the part that still lusts after a tiny, 1000 flight walk-up in Manhattan, the bustle, the peace-like-waves of hurried traffic, the need for human life tucked closely around me. And yet time and time again, no matter what my heart is most currently fixed on, I arrive at the question: Why are my loves and inclinations unprofitable desires? Ah, the prompt.

[and as I proof what's written so far, I can see a difference in my headspace, that I like very much]

Let me tell you about the limbs that grew before me. My mother. One of my earliest memories is picking peaches with her before I tortured the tree with my need to climb it, and it died and rotted. Making cobbler in the kitchen with brown perpendicular linoleum rectangles and her hair, curly. She would spend what seemed like days in her gardens, always in that lavender terry-cloth get-up, shorts and tube top connected, slender work gloves and sun visor. In those memories her hair is also curly. Her bounty would be bright roses and okra, bell peppers, tomatoes, summer squash. Cooking the harvest promoted such blissful Southern staples as fried green tomatoes and fried squash, and fried okra for that matter. And when it wasn't gardening season I would still watch her move in the kitchen. No matter how many hours in the week she worked, dinner was always relatively homemade. As I got older she developed an affinity for figs, and soon we had numerous fruit bearing trees growing along the chimney side of the house. She made preserves, although I can't recall this being an intensive process, so there may not have been bundles of them. Nevertheless, this was very normal in my existence, not critical or praised like faith from the stem or from the hands, but performed like rituals with great reverence and joy.

My late great aunt, Mom's side. Influenced by The Depression, she developed a need to horde, cultivate and feed. Another dated memory is being put in a highchair hooked to a diner table in her self-named restaurant. She manned the register and the kitchen simultaneously, along with several acres of row gardens heavy with everything: grapevines, cherry trees, vegetable plants, nuts, fruits, leafy greens, etc., etc. And canning was an event, a near daily event. I still have jars in my pantry waiting for the right rainy day to make peach pie with her filling, and green beans that rival anything store bought. She did it all even until the end. After a partially paralyzing stroke the walker accompanied her garden work, and the kitchen was never empty of something earthy and quaint in its conception, but radiantly and perfectly full of Home. She served humanity from the ground and from humble hands.

These are the only ones that I know or have known. I hear that my mom's mom was quite thrifty as well, and my dad's mom had the chickens that I want now. Maybe he's right. Maybe some things are so vital to a person's make up that they can't be denied. This somehow seems to edge up awfully close to a vast pondering of the meaning of life. My "mother in law" asked if I expected the economy to get bad enough to warrant all of this simplifying, which caused to me to look at my motives. The economy was never behind it. I answered that part quickly and with ease. That explanation is a part of the story that hasn't quite formulated. There is something crucial feeling in watching a seed grow or kneading dough that will become the foundation of sandwiches, and in knowing that if all the world fell down around us, I would, in some small capacity, be able. And besides, it's in my blood. This, whatever it is becoming, feels like faith and purpose, like joy.

1 of 31: giving (up)

I'm giving nablopomo[.com] a try for March.  The theme is "giving (up)," however if I stuck with it, this would be a mighty depressing month, and I can tell you that the Forever Winter we are experiencing in these parts and deployment are doing a damn fine job of setting a forlorn tone.

For the kick-off, I'll do my best to throw on my rosey glasses and grace you with a little optimism.

[clears throat]

I wish that I had something profound and gracious to write.  And while I know that all the good outweighs the sacrifices (or I wouldn't be doing this) it's hard to be quiet enough to hear the meek, whispering reminders of choice.  The Staff Sergeant told me he was in the Army after luring me to coffee.  I considered walking out the door, giving him my best wishes and telling him to be safe but never to call.  However (entranced by his good looks and good shoes), I took my coffee from the counter and followed him back to our table.  He talked about literature and family and his smile, so perfectly perfect was hypnotizing.  By closing time my bones had dissolved and my limbs were tingly and beyond my body's physical acknowledgment that something was different, I couldn't stop what would happen in the months and months to follow.  

I was living the urban-dreamer life.  I had dibs on a loft in downtown Nashville, hopes to study sociology at Vanderbilt or to earn an MFA in writing, plans that snaked ten-times around the earth's circumference that did, in no way include or tolerate the Army.  Needless to say, I'm not in the loft of my dreams nor am I in a masters program at Vanderbilt, but I can say without a shadow of doubt that I am better for the altered plans (think space and money).  A year and a half ago I couldn't have told you that I'd be living it up in army-ville, working may way through a deployment.  In fact, I might have told you that a deployment was impossible.

I remember sobbing over the scene in The Interpreter when an African terrorist blows up the bus.  I thought to myself, I can't do this.  I thought that phrase a hundred times before looking around and realizing that I am doing it, regardless of how hard and heavy some days are.  At some point the thought became a question of how to be not whether or not I was strong enough.  

I hesitate to categorize any choices that I've made or changes to choices as "things I have given up", rather my perspective has changed and what I want out of life has taken a detour once again.  What I have [temporarily] given up is time and proximity.  He's not the first thing I see in the mornings or the last that I see before bed.  I've given up kisses and running inside jokes and dinner for two and the luxury of speed dial and an answer.  I've given up a lot of control that I probably never had anyway but let myself believe that I did.  

As I tell him almost daily, in emails that I'm not sure he really has time to read: I wouldn't change anything about where I live, who I love, and what that means about the person I have to be.  I don't like this leg of it but it will make the time that he's home so much better and so much more appreciated.

my REAL Valentine's gift(s):

I've been meaning to write about Valentine's Day.  The last post featured a little self indulgence, but the real surprise was these gorgeous roses that came on Friday.  He wanted me to get them a day early so I'd have them all day on Saturday and to maintain the element of surprise.  Saturday I got to talk to him for ALMOST AN HOUR!  It was the best 47 minutes in the last two months because it felt like we got to be ourselves.  An even bigger surprise was his nonchalance regarding the ring info I sent. I was absolutely certain that he would 1) panic and 2) never, never bring it up.  He did.  A reenactment is as follows - 

The SS: "I got the latest package - with a sack of potatoes and the jewelry quote."

Me:  "...I'm sorry, what?"

The SS: "I got the jewelry quote.  I thought that kind of thing was supposed to be a surprise."

Me:  "...I'm sorry, what?"

The SS:  "That stuff doesn't freak me out anymore."

Me:  "Oh...yeah...nobigdeal..."

It was one of those moments when the tables suddenly turned, I panicked having been caught completely off guard and I really didn't think that this was an appropriate time for shrieking-with-overwhelming-joy into the phone.  That we'll save for something more official with sparkly deal-sealers and whatnot.  It was a GOOD day!

Then I went shopping.  My way-too-expensive jeans will be ready at the tailor tomorrow.

compromise

I've begun to contemplate where the line draws itself, or where I've managed to draw it unconsciously, while sleepwalking or severely distracted.  I don't remember marking it in the dirt or qualifying either side of it.  Maybe it is my fault for not taking into account the boundaries that I set in place and didn't share or acknowledge.  

Compromise.  This is a thought bleeding through all of my others, every word I read, mile I devour, every breath and television show and goodnight kiss.  There is a line; on one side is mutual respect, sharing and necessity and on the other you become a traitor to self.

When does compromise become compromising?

I cannot deny who I am and how far removed it is from The Staff Sergeant.  Think of a personality trait, any one of them, any conviction or stance on the world and we appear at far ends of the pendulum's swing.  I've always appreciated that about us, how his perspective challenges mine, how he is a catalyst for me to think beyond myself and the ways that come easily to me.  Think of us as the Super Soldier and the Earth Child, though you may wonder how we ever managed to attract to one another I've always thought that we had roots in the same center, yet we spiraled outward in separate directions.  When you come from the same place, Home is easily recognized.  

Perhaps it's politics: the way I shape myself around his contours like a bead of mercury. because I'm a girl. because I want him to love me. because I can keep the surge of myself tamed for a time and I do. because I don't believe that I'm deserving. because the super soldier having room for the social-rights-fighting-world-saving-peace-love-and-Obama-supporting earth child would be a bright, strobing anomaly [with a mandated caution against seizures].

That is what scares the spirit out of me.

I don't believe that we have to agree on all points.  I don't even want him to be like me.  If he echoed my voice, every word, we would bore ourselves into a puddle of empty meaning.  But I am all of those opposing pieces and I fear that maybe they won't mix.  I have a hard time knowing when the jokes are laced with truth or when they are hollow shells of air spent for no real reason, or if that is even possible.  I've stopped entirely caging myself and have begun releasing small drips to float like oil to the surface.  I self-imposed the captivity, compromising constraints.  I dimmed the deep-hued dirt from whence I sprouted.  These are my own guilty endeavors, and as they recede I can only hope that the training has paid off, that our stitching really is war-strong.

she wants what she cannot have

I should absolutely, ABSOLUTELY not be here right now, but that's when I want it the most. I can't help it - maybe that's why I couldn't write all summer, because the keys were so clearly there and my time was so wide open to caress them. Anyway, my psyche is all to complex for the few seconds I can afford between a folder of poetry I need to workshop before one o'clock and the other half-page response I owe to Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. It's the third book for my 19th century lit class and I've all but made up my mind that I'm not a fan. I wasn't a fan of calculus either, but I had to stomach the course to get my diploma. Such is life, I guess.

Speaking of which, [life that is] it continues to move forward. I've inquired about several apartments in the new -ville and I'm looking forward to the end of my other lease. The hour commute to school is wretched with the fuel whores being hungry for more and more and more. And my puppy has all but forgotten that she has a human mommy. I stop in between demands and she has torn the cushions from my antique sofa. I situate them again in their precise order and before I have left [again], she has made her rebellion noticed. With them spread across the living room floor, she perches herself proudly on the now barren lining. She's ready to move, too. The distance is not good for her nerves.

I'd love to scrawl more, but I really have to finish these assignments. More later. More later.

portion control

Normal should feel warm and relieving, but usual and forgettable - certainly not profound.  It should accompany the peace of Sunday's sunset as we routinely ride home beneath its shreds of violent pinks.  It should not spark a jolt of unsettling fear when I realize that I have recklessly nestled myself into the nook of Normal's safety.  There is no true safety in letting all of your armor fall away; there is no actual reliability in waking and retiring against the heat of his skin.  Sooner or later I'll be clutching pillows with the hope of fooling myself through the night.  He'll be gone again, swallowed up by the abyss of War's fury, and I'll jingle with my insides full of broken shards.  That's the fate bestowed upon little girls who play with gluttonous, luxurious Normal.

Make yourself comfortable.  I know better than that.

I only wish I could take him for granted.  I wish that our duet was so stiflingly blazé that it drove me to maintain a drunken fantasy of something less ordinary.  Instead, I snatch his sneezes from the air, capture each of his scents, memorize the quake of his rhythmic pulse.  I stash these events away without thinking because I know the days will come again when even meager shadows of him will hold me together.

 

um. so. yeah.

I rubber-stamped some manila folders [to keep my school papers organized and fashionable] but I couldn't stop there. I've had a strangely creative day in comparison to this summer's drought-for-ideas and this whole blog thing - it remains a festering sore. It seemed an appropriate time to give this place a bit of focus. I can't decide what I want with it, and frankly, I shouldn't even be thinking about a blog with all of the reading I should be maintaining. I'm a believer that balance must be found and also, it's Friday, so I let my mind creatively wander to bloggier places than Erdrich and Jacobs.

[but only for a spell]

I'm thinking that this could absolutely not be what I want out of "new" and "fresh." What the hell, though, right? If we all cumulatively despise a limp attempt at irony, The Sound is only an upload away. For now, I'm going to sleep on this and see how you respond. We'll convene next week for a final judgment.

metaphorically speaking

His boots are the color of sand.  worn in the creases from nimble movement made in places I'll never know and never really want to know.  the laces are long to snake around his ankles. ends tucked out of sight.  tightly wound.  old and familiar.  

I could so easily slip in my tiny feet, losing them in all of the dark space leftover.  I could rest my soles in the low grooves made by his.  soak up the stale desert sweat.  march around not to mock but to know.  to feel the rhythm in his step as though it were mine.  

He bought for me small lounging shoes, sporty and gray.  slight and suede.  holding one in the expanse of his hand, I recall the way he questioned its feasibility.  It lay perched, fragile in his palm.  a perfect size seven.

I would guess not but a fragment of his toe would settle inside. awkward terry walls tightening at the ball of foot.  he'd never try to fit them on. nor would he mimic my bohemian parade.  no reason for him to match my gait.  brief and strolling.  quick and deliberate.  running to halt to run again.    

He would huff, "they are your shoes.  walk."  and I would wear them both.  white laces bow tied, hidden within his jump boots.  

[insert foot in mouth]

Not even one full month prior to The Staff Sergeant's honorable act of compassion [taking me on a much postponed, and ill-deserved rain-check-first-date], I was sitting in a coffee shop prophesying my immediate future.

On July 26, 2007, I wrote:

Apparently someone in the 80's thought it appropriate to "walk five-hun-dred miles", while The Plain White T's are currently crooning hipster lyrics about love and distance - not to mention the military sweethearts that are definitely feeling the stretch. If there are songs and books, and an entire branch of the US government that is valiantly surviving the dreaded plague of separation, I guess it can't be all that impossible.

[eerie, really]

This morning I was reminded of this archived post after Site Meter so kindly pointed to the curious individual in Somalia searching Google for...hope? inspiration? reassurance? I actually don't know - love with distance lonely worry.

Back in July I was much more than unsuspecting, in fact, the reference to the tribulations of the military was spurred only from a close friend of mine whose voice inferred the struggle across long-distance phone connections. It was almost one of those totally selfish, "Whew, glad it's not me!" mentions. But life has one hell of a sense of humor as it would seem. I'm now one of those "valiantly surviving the dreaded plague of separation" and though sometimes I wish that I could close my eyes and click my heels and have him home, sweet home, it really isn't an impossible feat when you understand the value of what you have.

Again, a bit redundant, but it made me laugh - the irony of my arrogant self, that is. Maybe this will reach Somalia. Maybe it will help to bridge the loneliness and worry.

Oh the times, they are a' changin'

It seems that life happens at a rate too fast for recording these days. I know I'm slacking here, and in personal journaling, and worst of all, I am very aware of the toll it takes for me not to be writing every day. Words become more difficult to use, and cobwebs blanket my inner vocabulary pool. I stutter a lot in my head...SOOO, I'm going to put forth more effort here, both for the therapeutic benefit and for the mental exercise it provides. I have to. I really feel that it is vital for whatever the next chapter holds.

I've been juggling this last semester with much more agility than I have in the past few, and I'm being more prudent with my study habits as the burning desire to get into graduate school for journalism has been re-lit...and there might be some futuristic talk, albeit still quite ambiguous, of relationships/careers/higher education and location and where it all could lead. All that to say that this is my current inexcusable excuse for slacking in the blog commitment. I'm sorry. I will do better.

This is turning into a kludge of a post, but I'll at least leave you with a teaser or two of things on my mind [that will hopefully be soon revisited in the form of substance].

On current reading lust:
I have noticed [as has The Staff Sergeant] that my palette has lessened an appetite for the heroine novels to which I was once drawn. I'm not talking about damsels in distress or worse yet, to be confused with drug use. No, the average, garden variety Oprah books [circa, beginning of the book club]...White Oleander, The Lovely Bones, Feast of Love, East of Eden. You know, where the women show resounding resilience and overcome obstacles to find themselves empowered in their new sense of self. blah, blah, blah. Ok, I did just receive the newest Sebold novel, but even she likes the dark side. Wow, a tangent has ensued! The point, and there is one, is to note the drastic turn from "warm and fuzzy" to war and destruction. To give you an idea, a list of my last 10 literary purchases:

1. What is the What
2. The Sandbox
3. The Graves are Not Yet Full
4. A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide
5. The Blog of War
6. War Reporting for Cowards
7. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
8. Journalista's
9. A Disorder Peculiar to the Country
10. Highways to a War

What to make of this?

Well, The Staff Sergeant has painted a picture including me in [insert war-torn country] running around in an over-sized Kevlar helmet as mortars go off around me, toting a notebook and/or satellite driven laptop. I, however, just want to get into Journalism School and to continue to feed the ravenous beast [guilty pleasure] of my own curiosity and impassioned heart. We'll see where it takes me :)

Finally

"So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending."

- J.R.R. Tolkien

A story as uncharacteristic as the phenomenon itself: Snow falls in Baghdad. Sometimes the good news does manage to fall through the cracks. And so I am once again, but only slightly, challenged to consider the possibility that humanity might not all be destined for disaster. I'm sure tomorrow will act as confirmation that it is, but today, this is good enough.

busy, busy

Again, only a minute...

Yesterday the sky dumped torrential rains on Nashville without relent. I should have stuck with the striped Wellington idea but went with notably absorbent New Balances instead. If I haven't clarified already, my most peeved occurrence in life is wet hems on jeans...they never dry and inevitably find a way to slither, clammy and cold, into your shoes. Strangely, against all meteorological odds, yesterday was wonderful.

I guess no matter how much I dread the blocks of class time spent trying to overcome the distraction of day dreams, to-do lists, etc., there is some solace found in the reliability of knowing that I won't care about the business-talk, the corporate explanations, the inner workings of Ford, Starbucks, Post-it, Amazon, Wal-Mart, to name only a few. In addition to this disappointing realization, I spent the afternoon chatting over subs with a friend from last semester, purchasing a highly overpriced flat-iron that I've convinced myself is vital for existence, marking off a few necessary errands, and finally, an evening with the Staff Sergeant.

Rain as it may, no weather could have dampened a night spent with him. Like a friend of mine recently told me, the time apart makes you appreciate the time together all the more, and our time is temporarily numbered as his short, long departure all too quickly approaches.

Some words [to go with photos]

I don't have much time, but I wanted to write some words to correspond with the slew of photos that were posted to mark events. Sunday was possibly the most polarized day I will ever spend on earth. The afternoon was dedicated to a lesson in shooting. The Staff Sergeant commended my abilities, although I'm still not certain that he doesn't have to compliment his girlfriend...especially when she's armed :) I was proud of myself both for aiming and hitting the target in accordance [kind of], and also for braving the unknown. I'm a girly-girl to the core, but Sunday afternoon I shelved the princess tiara for ear and eye protection and pretended for an hour or so that I was someone else. It was nice break.

The evening brought me back to my usual self in a kind of overdrive. A friend of mine, whose boyfriend is also in the army and in Iraq, came over to spend the evening [and into the morning] baking more cookies than my kitchen has certainly ever seen at once. It's funny how loving one suddenly makes you susceptible to caring about them all. The least we could do was bake and ice and sprinkle a few pieces of home [200+ cookies]. Cumulatively, we catered to 68 troops...all of her boyfriend's platoon and my adopted soldiers [plus 20]. While I am lucky [lucky, lucky, lucky] to have The Staff Sergeant here, I've befriended or renewed friendships with a couple of girls who love their guys despite the divide. It's a different kind of commitment with different kinds of trials, and I'm awed often at their strength. I hope when my time comes I can be half as tenacious as they are. Because we could and because we love our two soldiers, we baked to keep vigil. I cannot ever do more than imagine what it's like to be at war for Christmas, but I'd like to think that a humble token of sugar cookies and the knowledge that someone blocked out time and energy just for me, because I was [at war] would at least make me smile. And even I know that sometimes that's enough.

Happiness is a warm gun.

I'm hardcore.

You have no idea.

[note super bad-ass Starbucks coffee...]

Dear Self,

Today I took the time to write a letter. It will be sent to myself on my 26th birthday. I thought about copying and pasting the words here, awkwardly written in first person to me about me, but really to whom I will become. I reminded my future self of who I am in this moment today...struggling to keep it all together, whose family has unfurled, whose idea of Home is lost, lost, lost...wearing long, falsely-colored hair and bangs that I will probably look back on and question, "why?!" Intoxicated by new love and burned out on collegiate business studies, who has found a compulsive drive to write on anything about everything and wants nothing more than to find the niche of happiness that certainly must exist. I told my 26 year old self what I hope she has remedied. I told her about the dreams kept only in my head because, while I do tell almost anything, some prayers are too delicate, too sacred to expose. She will probably look back and laugh, being taken off guard by a composition she forgot she wrote on a bad day in her 23rd year. At least I hope, on some levels, that she does. I left her with the little-girls dreams, the "when I grow up" bulleted list, the idealistic goals that I hope she will have accomplished, while knowing that life rarely goes as planned.

Naturally this train of thought led me to reflect on the past year and all of the irony and craziness that carried me through these 11 months. Now, as 2007 dwindles to a wintry close, I am entertained by last year's hopes for this one. I am so very far from the person I was last December. I grew substantially this year, which, in general terms, is exactly what I predicted. On a micro level, though, wow...it's really astonishing sometimes to look back at the outline you planned and then veered from, but I learned from the short-cuts and scenic routes, and even the idle hours spent waiting in traffic. I learned specifically what I would never again settle for, and what I could and couldn't live with, and that I can survive on my own, but I don't like it. I swore to learn 25 new things...I'm assessing this goal and will have an accurate report of progress by December 31st.

I said I was coming back to Nashville, and I packed my car and did it. I said that I wouldn't date for 365 days, but I did, and I even fell in love, an event I was sure would be impossible for a very long time. I said I would graduate in December, and as it approaches I've known since August that it wasn't possible, and frankly, I wonder if I will even pass all of my Fall classes this semester. I've had four jobs, two roommates, one new bedroom wall color, finished one book, completed two pieces of art, written one commercial composition, started a blog, and been introduced to the lifestyle of the Army. I've lost and made friends, I've seen beauty in pure form and ugliness too. I've done a lot of aching, but haven't found reason enough to throw in the towel. I've left and returned. I've stumbled a lot with intermittent glimpses of grace. Although marked by scars, I now know how to avoid tripping sometimes. I'm better because of the falls and stronger because I eventually shake them off.

No, no one promised me a rose garden. In fact, my Mother always made it a point to assure me that life isn't fair. Keeping all of that in mind and where I've been and where I hope I'm going, maybe sooner than later I'll at least have a bed of tulips or daisy's.

CHECK THIS SITE: FutureMe.org

And the door is only three paces away.

We spend so much time mapping journeys that never quite play out as planned. We fill our heads with dreams and whisper personally crafted endings into our own ears so many times that pre-construction based on fiction becomes inevitable. While the battle between expectations and actuality most often ends somewhere other than the scripted mark, life still finds a way to be incredibly beautiful. Even in tragedy, at the pinnacles of joy, in the gray ash of a season's defeat, and in the prospects of what mystery lies just beyond a door, it comes together in a collage of discovery. In it we are made human.

I can't make them love again, I can't even make them like one another. Likewise, I cannot stop or even pause the throes of wars being waged [or distant training that is required to combat them]. I may or may not be able to muster an ounce of interest in tomorrow's morning classes, or to rely on sunshine, acceptable cell service, a place to park my car. While these things are so, I am many of my parents' good parts. I am lucky for each moment in peace with and proximity to my soldier. I am grateful for close friends who willingly listen to garrulous chatter. Occasionally, I even feel cozy in the midst of a gray afternoon or the quiet of disconnect. It happens for a reason, to get us to the next place. Maybe if I shift my focus and stop trying to manage something so large that it cannot possibly be steered, I'll remember the gorgeous intricacies that make this mine [even when it's hard].

principle or semantics?

Washington Post - "As War Dragged on, Coverage Tone Weighed Heavily on Anchors"

If you can imagine the hundred-thousand curiosities now spinning about my head...I'm dating a soldier. I'm a liberal supporter. I aim to study journalism following undergrad. And I'm a bit of a pacifist. I, like many people in this gray, gray world, am a walking conundrum.