The responsibility to appropriately represent (a) character(s)

What I am trying to tell you is this: in my own way, I love you. And you can trust me, mostly. I won't lead, wouldn't lead, haven't led you wrong. It would be bad form. But please know that if I do lead you wrong, I once thought it was right.

- Monson, Neck Deep, Appendix

I used to think that what I wanted was to be like you (or the many of you who are military wives). But really, I was an artist first and "they" say, "be true to yourself." I am a left-winged liberal. I don't believe in war. I would lend my crossed legs to a cause in need of silent protest. I try only to buy organic produce. There isn't much of me that fits the bill anyway. And there is the almost palpable barrier--a man in crisis. I don't think he reads this garbage anymore, so I am feeling a little less censored. That isn't even half of it. Maybe he thinks that The Lonely Sound was abandoned or he doesn't care anymore. In his own way, he loves me.

In my own way, I love you.

Lately I imagine the trajectory of a bullet. I imagine the spatter patterns it might cause on a wall or some other wayward surface. Brain matter, other parts. It doesn't matter. I play out the motions only in my head, and I'm only telling this because I'm tired of pussyfooting around the idea of self. I don't care if you like me. I should never have cared. And the truth, if there is such a thing, is that it may not be in the cards for me to "be" one of "you" army wives. Because life is a force to be reckoned with. It will happen according to or not at all resembling the outcome I reach for. We are born alone. We die alone. I write alone. I am beginning to believe that he wants to be alone, a man as Island.

(I am trying to disassociate myself.)

I am beginning to dream of the Anywhere I could move, the Anything I could do, all the dreams and ideals that dreamers and idealists conjure. I was, after all, an artist first, and then somehow his and somehow this.

I thought for the first time tonight that I could be okay married to creativity, the lonesome but not lonely eccentric. I thought that I could move in a couple of months for him, indulging the have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too element of whatever the fuck is going on here, but I won't. I need more satisfaction than that. I don't think I was ever meant to be the understudy, the shadow lurker. Some hours do belong solely to me.

And maybe I am the "married" type, and he is the one who isn't. Well, there isn't anything I can do to change him.

There isn't anything I can do to change him...but I was always honest. I always aimed for the LONG TERM.

Perhaps though, it's me? I always run. I'm kind of preparing to run now, peeling back the layers of happy-family-visions and the imagined faces of our unborn children, a fusion of more than individuals.

I feel like I am losing and because I don't care about winning per se (and he does), I think I am more privy to, or likely to examine the behavior of dissolution. We are fuzzy at the edges.

I am trying to read Brenda Miller's Season of the Body but it is proving difficult. Her focus is on the end of a relationship with Keith, who also makes an appearance in Blessing of the Animals in a beautiful essay called "A Different Person." It is so painful to imagine us parting ways. So unbelievably painful. I have harnessed so much in this Man, this ourness of life, a river fed by us as tributaries. And now what?

I am my own captain. (though not quoted, per request.)

I am not challenging the "who" manning the wheel. I am sure as shit my own captain.

Hold yourself together.

(punish someone else.)

universal truth

Sometimes I feel the great weight of this whole thing--being apart, knowing it isn't the last time, and knowing I still have to perform, [all] at once.

Mine is an act of blind compulsion. At 7am the squealing pulse of my cell phone goes off. I have nowhere to be, most likely, but anything later than that hour feels wasteful and lazy. I sit up in bed bed, fumbling for my glasses and make my way to the bathroom. Everything following this routine is the result of the necessity to hurl myself toward darkness, another day's end. If I don't think about the "great weight" or if I simply move forward faster than I think it can keep up, or if I tell myself that the inconvenience is almost over, not a pattern in the cycle that will soon form our life together, then the hours feel normal, like my friends', like the lives of conventional people.

No one spells out the phases of separation. No one has so kindly written What to Expect When You're Expecting Him to Return. Maybe I wouldn't have liked knowing that the last weeks would split my personality into multiples, none of which perform independently. Instead they vie for the spotlight hungrily, without reservation. I am angry and broken hearted and giddy with excitement, and overflowing-happy, while tears pool in dark spots on my clothes and vainly shouted curses ricochet from wall to wall, unheard. I have embraced the control that lies in day-long check lists and home projects and rendezvous with friends that have become my family. There are time-spots left open for washing dishes and ceremonies put into play for scrubbing sinks and the tub. This autonomy makes sense, this is what had to happen.

Now I am asked to hang in waiting for a coded word, then the next one and the next until he finally steps from the magic vessel that will bring him home. I'm no good for these terms, and what about after, when my lists are disrupted and my support group is pushed into second place, and the Army has control again of more than just an arrival date. How does the switch flip smoothly? How is it possibly fair to be expected to bounce from one existence to the other without suffering an inevitable and utter breakdown?

13 of 31: giving (confession)

I've heard that it takes about twelve weeks before this starts to feel normal.  I'm not quite there so I can't vouch for the resolution that is said to bloom after three months of struggling to find a balance.  What I do know is that it hasn't come soon, in fact I have done a fair share of backsliding, which leads me to believe that I am progressing, though I can't determine if I've moved from denial to anger or depression in the grief process.  There are no moments that I can recall bargaining for anything so I'm led to think that this is anger.  I feel like I don't know him in pictures, that we might as well be filler models used to show how perfectly other couples' smiles might fit within the frames.

I really wouldn't write any of this if I wasn't supposed to write something daily.  As it turns out, March is full of cynicism and will accurately be remembered as such.  One of my friends recently explained to me that she would like to run away from her life.  I asked her to share her destination because I would happily pack my bags to join her.  I need a manual (written by a human being) on how to do this.  I feel like I'm failing us by not being strong enough, yet I don't know how to be anything other than this.  

Tune in for April, maybe I'll edge toward acceptance next month.  

a meditation on pilates

I have almost decided that my bi-weekly Pilates-at-the-Apollo is an intolerable waste of time. There simply must be a better soundtrack for working out. Laying on my back breathing through The Hundred while Whitney-Houston-or-whoever-the-fuck gets her groove back channels more hostility than motivation. As my arms bounce rhythmically at my sides and I'm huffing through each set of five, I am also imagining taking aim at the pretty white Bose speakers that hang from the ceiling and pulling a trigger. The bullet moves too quickly to track the motion and then they shatter and fall to the floor. There are no more slow, soulful leg circles and I can suffer through plank position in peace.

I haven't totally written off the group fitness idea, I'm just saying that the playlist could really use revamping, and the instructor could use some instruction, and the 18-year-old majority could use some serious maturing.  Other than that, it's going great.  The backs of my thighs are still a little sore from Monday's class.  

I really miss my pole dance fitness classes.  I do better in a setting where there are concrete goals to reach.  I get bored easily with monotony; luckily the pilates instructor finally decided to change up the routine after several weeks.  I'm sure she's a really great health science major but perhaps it's possible that she isn't a born leader.  I would like her to once explain the importance of posture, breathing, or for the love of lean muscles, to tell us to "pull our bellybutton into our spine and lengthen."  

I live in the house of Murphy's Law, the bloody-cold house of Murphy's Law - with frozen kitchen pipes and my feet are numb.  And that's just the latest thing that could go wrong and did.  I hate this house...

But in the house of Murphy's Law cookies are love.  I made a special batch this afternoon with all of my heart and longing thoughts to find him in far off places:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

2 c. all-purpose flour

3/4 c. cocoa

baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 c. dark brown sugar

1 c. granulated sugar

1 c. unsalted butter at room temperature

2 tsp. vanilla

2 eggs

6-8 oz. peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees, line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper; sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in a medium sized bowl

In a large bowl beat butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until fluffy.  Add vanilla and eggs and beat well.  Stir in the flour-cocoa mix, then fold in peanut butter chips

Drop the cookie dough by the tablespoonful onto the prepared baking sheets.  Bake 8-10 minutes, then let cool on racks.

on to something new [ready or not]

I have so much to say and so little energy and liberty to etch it all across this screen.  Christmas left something to be desired, new year's eve, however was perfect -- more perfect than perfect.  This life has a way of letting one glaze every moment with high-gloss hyper-perfection, given the right timing and circumstance.  Each breath and smile is caught and archived, pinned like fragile specimens behind glassy walls, slow motion memories with over-pronounced dialogue and historical inaccuracy.  

I err most often on optimism -- foolish, really.  I imagine the still frames more richly colored, sugary and scripted.  For example, I omit certain attempts at death-by-Dorito-consumption and possible engagement rings (on my mother's finger), large life-engulfing trunks, drunken welcome-homes, all consuming guilt, the kind of "good bye" that truly has the power to grind one's heart to dust.  I have added brightly adorned Christmas trees, comfort and relaxation, smiles, security.  Next year will be just long enough for my mind to fully buy into all of those forged memories and I will probably be surprised when it plays out just the same.  

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night

I'm home for Christmas and just like last year it isn't what I had hoped for.  I've had to cut my trip short and neither parent is pleased with the abbreviated visits.  There is no tree at my Dad's, no empathy at Mom's.  It seems more probable that this is the going rate now, the status quo, expected.  I had wanted so much more from the holidays this year -- a roaring fire and the twinkle of tiny lights descending from a tree's peak in woven spirals and that intangible, indescribable feeling of comfort and rightness.  I hate that my muscles now clench as the oddities of others become irritants that mark the Christmas season, for example, the 62 inch projection of an exclusive musak channel.  

My father reminded me on the way home from the big family dinner that I do have much for which to be thankful.  And I do, though it really is difficult to clear away the fog of Murphy's Law long enough to give appropriate praise for physical health and economic security.  I have the pleasure of loving an amazing man who treats me like a princess.  I take a lot of things for granted, nevertheless I'm tired of fighting battles.  Maybe I ask for too much or expect too much.  Maybe I outgrew Christmas with age.  Maybe I actually am lost in a sea of raging idiots.  I'm leaning toward the latter and it chips away daily at my usual disposition and temperament.  I want one day to pass without a major trial, and to forget for one day the notions of deployment and war and divorce and wrong-doers.  I want a simple task to be effortlessly executed.

Perhaps tomorrow will be the day, a Christmas miracle, if you will.

if only a sigh were loud enough

My muscles pinch and crawl like intolerable little spiders up and down my back, up the length of my neck, around my middle.  I balance in between grabbing for the swimmy-head, stomach tickling anxiety pills and screaming and swinging and unbinding any sense of composure I have ever held myself together with.  

I don't understand why there are times when each single task erupts into odyssey after odyssey.  It's god-damn over-the-phone bill paying.  It is MADE to provide a convenient service!  Charge me ONCE, not twice OR not at all!  It's tracking down the apparently out-of-print book for 19th century lit. that LITERALLY is only housed at the smallest, out-of-the-way-est library known to mankind, and it only took 10 phone calls and an absurd conversation with the 85-year old uninformed campus librarian who could NOT explain to me why the online catalog listed the fucking book as both "available" and "checked-out" before I could lay my twitching, exhausted hands on its cover.  And it's the bionic fleas that refuse to surrender the sweet, tender flesh of my poor, suffering dog, and the vet money I don't have and every cure I've tried [as best as I could].

I meant to tackle backed-up homework, though the universe clearly had other plans.  I spent the day unpuzzling an unexpected Rubiks Tuesday.  A couple of times I considered erasing my notion of maps and to-do's and driving aimlessly forever, but I settled on cooking my woes into oblivion.  I checked-out the book, had treated the dog with prescriptions and unearthed an intricate grocery list from the bowels of my purse.  I wandered until I found myself parked in a grand Kroger lot.  With eco-friendly shopping bags and wallet in hand, I entered the automatic gates of Salvation.  Ripe palettes of produce, chirping lasers kissing barcodes, panes of frozen aisles, warm yeasty shelves of bread; I love this pocket of life better than the hilarity of the world at large.  With my blue bag brimming full of dairies and veggies and tubes of dough, I caught myself before making my way to the finish-line cash register.  Hard cider and less of a white-knuckled grip on each angry minute beyond the thick walls of food would feel nice.  Finished, I went to pay.

This is where I picked up [yesterday].  And rising today, full on sleep and drawn by sunshine I started collecting myself, directing myself, finding my Wednesday purpose.  All was well and free of anxious, crawling muscles until I dumped out my purse for re-organizing.  No wallet.  Of fucking course: no wallet.  Because how could a day be whole without the blinding frustration of something amiss!?  And again I want to drive away, uncoil my mind with a pill, fire up the oven or uncork a thick, glass bottle of freedom.  

It's still at Kroger, holding my place in the land of salvation, only I'm miles and miles away, stuck in the here and now.

general complaints regarding the institution of chaos

I don't know whether I should laugh or cry or shatter things weaker than I feel right now, for the pleasure of a power trip and the satisfaction of destruction. Don't ever wonder how it might be more difficult than it is; it could always be worse.

He's always full of new news and it almost always makes a mockery of the things I thought I could rely on, even when they aren't desirable. I've been bracing for some events since the beginning of us. They are bristles-raised threatening, guns-and-bombs scary; they creep into the dreams of even a sound sleeper to chip away at rest long before they are urgently upon us. Nevertheless, a person can condition oneself for anything given enough time to build up walls of sandbags. Even a war-flood becomes a tolerable idea when you have had time to prepare for it.

And so I think that's the worst of it. Nothing is bigger or more difficult than all we've been through already and all that is written into future date boxes. Life on the coat-tails of a soldier isn't billed to be an easy one - constantly jerked and bounced around in the shadow of his duty to country. No matter how jostled, the peak was in sight just above the crags and ridges. It always appeared to be reachable until new news birthed low clouds to make me question our direction.

I knew that you in the calamity of war would be fucking awful! And yes, it is simply unbearable to let my mind entertain the possibility of that phone-call - so I don't, I can't. If I did, every tomorrow would be "insurmountable". There are times when it feels like we are held together only by fraying scraps, but you come home and we stitch the wounds and mend the tears. What do we do if there is no home, and all the patched up ragged shreds wear faster and thinner? It isn't this over that, it's both circumstances stacked high and heavy one upon the other.

This is a life for the mad, the numb, the inhuman. The truth is, I don't want to be stronger. I want to crush thin, perfect glass between a swift downward blow and a solid surface. I want to scream and kick my feet against the floor in an epic tantrum. I want to tear out my love-drunk heart to wring it sober.

an honest attempt

I am determined to write something positive as my fingers hover over these familiar keys. I was recently honored by being allowed to grace the ranks of alltop.com's twenty-something genre and while I think I should feel accomplished and elated, I'm fighting the urge to crawl beneath the nearest rock. Not only have I read the latest posts, I wrote them so I know they haven't been profound or interesting. They and I haven't had much to say.

I'm trying to warm to this new life with its slower pace and limited social interaction. On top of the steep shift of transition, I am still only acquainted with Army-ness, which has currently caused the most distinct abyss of separation to date. My life seems to be carved out in such a monotonous cycle from now until it dissolves into the horizon, accompanied by the end of a lease, the want of graduate school, career-lust, where-we're-going-next, and the rest of uncertainty. I have found that these times of unanchored purgatory are my most miserable. I am the type of person who needs an artery to ground them to a blood source. It doesn't help that the nearest thing to Constant is unavailable. So I wait. I'm waiting for the end of Six Months, waiting to sink my toes into new soil and take root. I'm waiting for him to return so we can talk - what a luxury taken for granted - waiting to start the right job search in the right city in the right industry, waiting to apply to a right local university. So I wait, in this temporary, lonesome state strung between nothing and being engulfed in the thickness of Living According to Direction.

Something positive.

If nothing else, I'm reading. Just like I said I would love to, I'm reading books that have nothing to do with business or school or final exams. I read now in a carefree way that I only recall from memories of grade school or summer vacations. There is no guilt, only wispy delight in worlds cracked open like rich yellowy yolks - the smells and heat of a childhood in Rhodesia and Zambia, the damning panic that moves one to murder, escaping war-torn Sudan to the American violence of Atlanta. They inspire me to strain my reach toward the dream of one day growing into a writer. They let me step away from all the worry of Life's meaning and my role, from the weight of missing him and from counting the hours until he is home again.

While I am desperately trying to appreciate this new journey, the effects of the institution are strong and wrangling. I am a little lost without the obligation of college and afraid of the great-big-world sitting all cocked and ready to either act as my salvation or to happily crush me. This grown up chapter is frightening, especially without the support of my other half. I'll get through it just like I've powered through all the other trying times of my life, and I'll learn new things and I'll grow, just like in the other struggles to find myself. I'm sorry it often manifests from a dreary place inside, but I'll try to do you better than surpluses of desolation.

On another note:

WTF? I was almost proud to claim my Memphis home... We are thug-bred! Basketball is in our blood! And what does Kansas have? Corn?

Chalmers’ 3-pointer lifts Kansas to OT and a 75-68 championship victory over Memphis

Oh darling, the seasons are your friend.

I feel very repetitive and that the continuation of focus on the fact that I love him and he's gone and it's hard will in the end bore not only me, but also you. In tandem, I am reminded that in thinking that way, I might have lost sight of my originating purpose. My reasons for blogging were inspired more so by the expression of self than ever they were for drawing readership...but of course I do appreciate my audience [please don't misinterpret].

I used to paint. I spent the better half of my high school days painting and purging all of the angst of adolescence on recycled canvas and old boxes and pretty much anything shy of my own skin. When time became less and high school lent itself to the responsibilities of college, I packed away the boxes of paint and old scraps and pencils. Cutting that part of expression from my life quickly proved unsuccessful. I'll spare you the year and a half of emotional unrest that followed...

I've always journaled, yet another outlet as they say, but blogging seemed more purposeful, more communal, more like a support group linking us all together. In the end this is my little plot, my own acreage for whatever I choose to cultivate, where behind the guise of a silly pen-name I can bear my soul and bleed my heart and spend every entry raging against life's lack of regard for fairness [if I like]. Luckily, I don't. [I don't think, anyway.]

Consider that your hands-on-hips-I-write-what-I-want disclaimer. If the appeal of throwing yourself into oncoming traffic seems more than that of poring over my momentary devastation, please take whatever measures are necessary to stop reading [now].

When he left, it seemed that his scheduled number of weeks away were mountainous in size. He kissed me in the dark kitchen and pulled the door of my apartment shut behind him. I watched as the glowing beams of his truck redirected toward the road and his brake lights vanished eventually into the night. He was gone. Start the countdown. Deep breath. Tomorrow will be one day closer to the [figurative] end.

...how fucking naive.

Weeks passed with unusual calm. I can count on one hand how many nights I wept for vainly mustered desires of closeness. Finally the visit was afforded, and even that return was handled well. I didn't backslide, I was smiling by Monday, the threat of The Army seemed so benign. I would not be deterred [I probably scoffed]. I might have even thought it would be easy easier than expected.

I watch and listen to my comrades, my other, other-halves who standby while their boyfriends/husbands deploy for 15 months at a time, plus training. It felt that if they could do it then my experience, guaranteed to be less in length, would be something similar to the simple act of eating ice cream in July.

[Yes, in July...]

Last week came with news of another month-long bought of training. I'd get him for a number of days before an additional month of distance wedged between us. In my normal fashion, I cursed The Army, voodoo hexed Uncle Sam, shed a tear or two but found myself coping the following morning. I commended the grace it seemed I was [slowly] adopting. I probably even canceled the hexes.

Down to only a few more weeks, my thoughts had begun venturing to welcome-home dinner menus, movies soon to be showing, the thought of kisses and smiles and hearing him breathe again. I was definitely on board with the glass half full approach. Even one more month would put him back home for graduation* and an eventful May wedding [...not mine], and the delight of early spring, and...ok, I'll stop. I was excited enough to look past the extension.

I. was. proud.

Y'know that instantaneous burst of over-confidence you find when a true challenge is seemingly conquered? For example, those first gliding 50 yards on the bicycle Dad just stripped of training wheels. You manage without error only to peer behind long enough to realize he's let go...and inevitably the episode ends in bloody knees and Barbie band-aids, and probably loose gravel in your nose. Tonight that was me, minus the bike and band-aids. Their understudies: an aching heart, public tears, discount retail therapy, the urge to throw my phone to the vinyl floor and jump and stomp it with my moccasined feet until either they or my phone met defeat. I wanted to snap shut my metallic messenger and rewind life's audio. I wanted to graphically peel back my ears to remove the newly embedded information.

"...another 2 months."

[breathe.]

"...back sometime in July"

[cling to lasting threads of calm.]

"...sorry to drop the bomb."

I have to go. I'll...um...call you back later, k?

I went into this thing anticipating the deployment...the pinnacle trial, the Iraqi Everest, if you will. A little training trip here, a slightly longer one there, I saw them as previews not piling obstacles. I wasn't ready to hear that the initial two months had turned into five and would then lead to some months of pre-deployment training before The War again consumed him. By the time July arrives in all of her humid, blistering glory, well over half of our relationship will have been sustained by phone.** That's long before the long stretch of fear, worry and cross-continental separation.

::sigh::

I question my true capabilities of endurance. Can we survive on relatively brief exchanges coaxed by what meals were consumed or the chronology of a day? Rather, can I ? Can we grow over a phone or is this a purgatorial stale-mate until he's back for some substantial amount of time? Will the envy of "normal" couples make me bitter? Or the envy of his mistress weaponry? How emotionally available will the focus of his travels allow him to be? Might the strain of separate lives lead us down different paths?

Maybe at the end of the day none of these worries will be validated. If it's meant to be, it will thrive even in the face of adversity, even when pulled by the literal ends of the earth.

And I wonder, "is love really all you need?"



_________________________________
*read as BIG, fucking deal [as in 6 years in the making]

** 81.8%

And so it is...

I found this little gem at shoeboxblog.com [and it made me laugh]:

Top Five Reasons Why February Doesn’t Suck:
By Chris
1. The weather. No, that’s wrong.
2. Summer vacation is just around…no it’s not.
3. You can start wearing…wait. No you can’t.
4. Valentine’s Day was happy. If you were already happy.
5. It’s two days shorter than the other months. But not this year.

This flu thing is really wearing me down, thus to illustrate my state of mind, I begin with a very cynical, yet clever top-5 list. I am feeling somewhat that way myself as of late. We are now into day 7, yes, SEVEN! of this delightful influenza journey and I've exhausted all patience with my body's lack of wellness and the inabilities I am face as I try to get back into the swing of work and school. I basically feel like the wee little scrawny kid who gets beaten-up every day for his lunch money. I'm just waiting for the parent-teacher conference that quells the daily ritual.

Tuesday I attempted two classes. Sitting effortlessly and immobile, what could be so hard? By the end of the second, I was practically asleep on the desk as all of my insides pleaded to go back to bed. I went home to nap for four hours and called it a night shortly thereafter. Wednesday I was shocked to awaken to an unfamiliar "whole human" feeling that had seemingly replaced that of the "walking dead." I demanded that Work let me come in for a half day, which entailed sitting in a chair recording inventory...yet again, my body failed me. I was asked to leave after four hours.

I'M READY TO BE WELL DAMMIT!

So here I am, still trying to ease into the routine I hated last week and that I now fantasize about today...oh, to be able to stand for an entire 8-hour shift of work, or to sit without struggle through my long academic Tuesday's.

It truly takes so little to rearrange a person's perspective. It seems that I am continually shown that lesson both with the trial of the army and those [evil] forces of nature and Her "Flu Season."

One of my biggest motivators for feeling well, or at least looking as though I feel well is tomorrow's flight. I'll be leaving [...on a jet plane] late Friday afternoon for a weekend retreat with The Staff Sergeant. I'll be honest, four weeks has seemed very long, not necessarily with grueling connotations, rather with dissipating ones. It hasn't been much of a battle, yet it's heartbreaking to realize how much of Us seems to have transitioned into a vaporous and intangible form, save that daily phone call. I've talked with my girlfriends who are in the midst of The Great Divide and have watched as they anticipate brief homecomings. I don't know how they do it and ever let him leave again. I'm uncertain what kind of person that makes me, but even now with two days to take him in, I can't help being worried that my return will be harder than even his initial departure. There is something to be said for the milestone marker of X weeks down and X to go, but the ones lying between now and then still lie between now and then. Seeing his face again will surely melt away any apprehensions in my heart, it's just...time will pass all too quickly, being in his presence will feel like a tease.

And so, tempted as I am to curse the stars, life happens for reasons beyond me. Even when it seems that nothing good can possibly be the result of sickness, distance or even February, there are always little glimmers of silver linings to either be found or forged.

I'll work on being mindful of that notion.

and suddenly I'm not. so. young.

I haven't had one of those breath taking moments lately. The kind that leave a soul full with certainty and a mind bundled in an almost euphoric, drunken state of precise perfection. Where the right word fits or a phrase seems profound and one simply knows, without any inkling of doubt that it should be recorded and shared. These days my life's all abuzz with goals to achieve and the inherent need to distract myself from the things I cannot change. I can't slow down, lest I would surely crumble beneath the overwhelming weight of my future. I'm right on the cusp of something big. I can feel it in the way my heart quickens, in the outside-in pull from a force beyond tangibility. I can feel it in my bones, as they say.

[whoever they may be]

I still struggle to balance, though. There is so much hinging on Right Now. I've got to be studious, strong willed, independent, driven, persistent, prudent, focused, creative, me, me, me. I've got to be my own version of so many things with less room this time around for faltering. I know it won't be perfect. That's not how life is, but I wonder if I can pull it all off just as I dream it. Can I possibly achieve all of my goals? I have yet to lose hope.

I feel like I've lost my [writing] voice. I feel like I used to be more interesting, less introspective, or maybe just a better, more interesting version of balanced. I'm starting to wonder if I can really BE a writer.

You can do anything you want...

::sigh::

I want to know where this relationship is going - where will we be in 6 months? a year? Will it turn out like the others where the thread just started unraveling before anyone knew what had happened, or could this be the definitive - IT? I have expectations that far exceed the atmospheric boundaries of reality. It's a weakness of mine - wanting certainty over taking chances.

"Every relationship is a gamble at best." a counselor once told me.

There's nothing wrong, nothing at all. Everything is strangely wonderful, actually. He's incredible, and so I guess it still feels foreign sometimes to think that I might possibly deserve this treatment. I guess I fear that if it seems too good to be true, it just might be. Don't read that wrong, it isn't that we float through this movie-esque existence. We have minor hiccups along the way, but he listens to me, we work it out, and then it's over - just like that. I'm not accustomed to so much civility.

If he's reading, I'm sure he's perplexed by the place whence this mention has been spurred.

I'm getting ready to close the door on an era of my life. I'll pull it shut behind me and turn to face the grimace and possibility of the Real World. It's everything, the whole huge entirety of EVERYTHING awaiting my next journey that gets me panicked about all that is to come. I want it all figured out - the future of us, which grad school, what job, what avenue of career choice, where to live, what city, what state, buy or rent, insurance...tremendous freedom and terror all lumped together.

I didn't say that any of this fret was justifiable, but I think parts of it are [at least very normal]. I need to breathe, take in an hour at a time, or maybe day by day, depending on the fluctuation of stress levels.

At the very least, I'm hoarse and out of practice. Anything I do write seems rushed. I hate that, and I hate it for anyone who takes to time to visit.

I read a blog today that was beautiful, the words danced and unfolded across the screen of my computer. I almost stopped to grab a pen and paper to record the sublimity of her word choice. I didn't, though. Instead I took a jab at myself, deflated my self confidence a little, and wrote this vibrant conglomeration of pessimism.

My fingers wouldn't stop.

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.

Institutionalized

"I've only got a minute," seems to start the majority of blogs these days. I'm sorry, it's just...well, it doesn't matter how busy I am, I only have a minute.

I'm getting ready to brave the rain and the early-morning, angry traffic for day number two of the last round of classes. [DING!] It's bizarre to think that this way of life will be over in four months. In four months I'll be finished. No more 8am classes that I cannot, for the life of me, make it to on time. No more last minute research papers on business culture and the hierarchy of corporations that I do not support or praise.

It's funny, that's all.

If I said that I wasn't looking forward to graduation day, I'd surely be lying. It's been a really long time coming. But every time I consider the day following graduation, I think of that scene with Morgan Freeman standing in the grocery store asking his manager if he can go to the restroom. The guy tells him several times that he doesn't have to ask, but prison has conditioned the ex-con. I'm afraid that I'll be the same, a student for all but four years of my entire life, suddenly set free. I'll be given my paper bag of belongings and a small envelope of cash, and maybe a bus ride into town, and the whole, uncharted world will just be sitting there, waiting, ready for me to seize. I worry that I won't know what to do without the regiment of coursework and strangely broken-up daily schedules. I lust after that freedom, yet it terrifies me, too. I think I begin to panic at the sheer size of "adulthood."

I have no idea what I want to do with a degree.

[the next chapter, I believe, will take us to grad school]

Home is...not Memphis.

I said I'd post the back-logs, but I ended up journaling most of them. I'd recap the 4 days of holiday "bliss," if I wasn't exhausted just thinking about mentally reliving them. I saw some friends and family. I ate some good tasting, but not good for you Southern food. I wore skinny jeans and silver pumps to Christmas Eve's festivities. I received my grandmother's wedding set for the possible event of its [very future] intended use, and a fancy GPS, and some books, and lotion. I saw three movies. Drank one beer and two glasses of bubbly. And received 2 birthday presents a month early because my parents...I don't even know.

And it rained.

I'm glad to be home.

2007 December 23

The holiday festivities have officially begun. The Staff Sergeant and I swapped gifts last night, and this afternoon I carried him to the airport and with a quick kiss and “goodbye” he was headed home. I drove away and turned south to undertake my homeward journey, as well. I noticed the unusual volume of traffic, those kindred travelers also lured by tradition/obligation [and the promise of gifts], the sinking sun and the glowing blaze of whatever lies beyond the downward curve of the horizon…and the silhouettes of rolling hills lost in the shadows of such fiery effects.

I wondered if they [travelers] had families that felt like family. If they anticipated Christmas as Christmas had always been, or if maybe this year would be different for them also. I considered the ways my parents might try to overcompensate for the awkwardness of this first jostled season…and then let myself momentarily dwell on the reality of the thing.

::sigh::

I’m here now. I made it safely to Mom’s lake house. The water has been drained for Winter, leaving her lake-front property to boast only the undesirable view of a swampy, mud hole. Her man-friend is amiable as usual, making it impossible to dislike him on any justifiable grounds, and to perplex my unreasonable feelings even more, he gifted me with money – in a larger than appropriate sum. What do you do with that? Much less, how does one respond? He’s asleep upstairs “on the couch,” and I’m too worn down by the cacophony of holiday madness to really care.

Backing up, I don’t want to let last night’s lack of Christmas insanity to go undocumented: I received another pair of shoes that I had fancied but decided to bypass for at least a third time since first spotting them. They are small athletic-inspired shoes, the kind you’d wear beneath a pair of jeans with a cozy hoodie on a casual and comfortable day. In addition to footwear, I received the newest Post-Secret book to stand in for Cindy Sherman's Complete Untitled Film Stills that is en route amid the many other holiday gifts employing warehouses and delivery trucks across the nation. And he wrote me something...an account of his 22nd birthday. [He's an incredible writer, and this was my favorite gift of all.]

All I want to be is the minute that you hold me in

I could write about the 24 hours of rain that has dictated yet another gloomy-mood day.

I could write to tell you how I went to visit [cell phone provider] seeking aid in opening a photo of desert dunes that wouldn't...and how their inadequacies left me sitting in the drowning parking lot adding to the mist.

or about the raging headache that threatens the explosion of sinus cavities as the unpredictable up-and-down weather schemes fluctuate in sinister jests.

...but then if I broke into the incredible review of last night's Matt Nathanson and Ingrid Michaelson concert I attended, it would be an awkward change of pace. It might produce in you some kind of emotional vertigo, and, well, I would hate to have that burden on my shoulders.

beneath a little raincloud.

I'm in no shape to write. The words come out in sluggish lifeless groupings - lackluster and burdensome. It seems its all that way today, yesterday, the day before too.

I hold steadfast to some commitments but not without complaint, and others live only in the carnage of failed attempts. Some temptation is so alluring [I'll whine later about the end results of temporary pleasure]. I've talked myself into a slump, a low spot, a gray place, if you will. My words cannot rightly articulate a thought and the threads stretch beyond their giving abilities to hold together. I need a change of face...a brightening of heart. I need this week to be over, for some anticipations cause a soul to weaken. I yearn for the climax so I can again breathe and the minutes, the dragging, slothful minutes, to MOVE.

I think I'm going to bed...