The one where I talk about how I get VD. No, wait, not like that…

I get it.

I get the pain that you feel when you don’t have a special love.

I get the way it seems you’re being left out when so many are celebrating.

I get it.

I get the disgust over commercialized love and tricking the masses into feeling good about handing over money for silliness.

I get it.

I get that we shouldn’t need a day assigned to loving on the people who mean the most to us, because we should be doing that anyway.

I get it.

I get all of that, and more.

And still?

I don’t mind it. I’m not a Valentine’s Day Hater.

I don’t mind one more chance, reminder, reason, excuse or moment set aside to celebrate, support, love, admire, lift up, and cherish those who make me smile, float, spin, swell, beam, and love.

{i love you!}

My husband, son, mother, father, sister, brother, extended family members, best friends, neighbors, and all of my in-person and online buddies of all kinds… I am sending love and joy to you all today.

I get it.

And I hope you have a wonderful day, no matter how you feel about it.

Happy Valentines Day.

“Where life exists, love exists.”

~source unknown

time

they say it flies
often it rolls and tears
sometimes it creeps
and sneaks quickly, while you are distracted

it’s a flower that
drops its petals
far too quickly

you look around you
and they are scattered
like the pieces of your soul

changes explode all around
milestones rip past you
things you try to cling to are lost
others are found, unexpectedly

nostalgia will mock
serendipity can tease

the man holding the hourglass
has a snide grin
a cruel, jagged laugh

we all struggle to make sure
the joke is not on us
but when the laughter fades,
what side of the punchline will you be on?

always, we are progressing
through the stages of life
whether we resist the movement
or just flow

time pushes your existence
along a path that isn’t paved, but
being created by your own passage

do your feet drag lines down
your path
or are there hand prints
indicating that you did
cartwheels along the way?

your life, like time
tumbles by swiftly
and often quietly
if you let it

like the life of that flower
from bud to fragrant memory.

lets
try to stop and notice
those moments when
it is in bloom
just as often as we note
the petals that fall.

believing in rediscovery

April 26th rolled past me, as it did you. It brought pain and joy and all things in between to him and her and them and the others. It was a day, and we all walked into and out of it, just like we do so many others. Some days leave their marks on you and those marks, be they soft lip prints or jagged, deep carvings, stain you. This is Life’s Tattoo. This is the one that can’t be removed; you just have to learn to live with your new ink. You may even find beauty in it.

I thought about this baby several times on this past day that happened like they all do, as clocks everywhere mark the time that slides by without any effort. It has been 2 years since that first miscarriage, the one that opened the door on a special kind of fear and loathing, and introduced me to the doubt of my female body.  On this day I wondered, as I have so many times, who that one could have been if conditions had been just right. I sometimes stare off into nowhere, eyes distant, face slack, thinking these thoughts. Then I sigh deeply and swallow a lump in my throat; my hand may wipe at a tear that rolls absently. Other times I feel a peace, a moving on, an acceptance.

My world feels different than it used to so many moons ago.  I am changed.   There are some wonderful differences and there are, scattered about, some not so fabulous ones. These things, the changes both good and bad, are all just a part of the What Is. I can handle that. I can roll with it and still find a reason to be, see a splendor in life. It’s always there, waiting for me to rediscover it.

There have been times I didn’t think that was possible – that I’d be able to see beauty and feel bliss in life again, be able to even care if it was there or not. But I hold that knowledge, that truth, close to me now, as I live and breathe.  This tender awareness seems to sit in the palm of my hot hand like a smooth pebble. It holds weight and feels cool against my skin. I like it; it grounds me.

There is splendor in life. You (and I) can always rediscover it.

I have learned another truth during this time, as well.  A less fabulous one, I’m afraid.  In every situation during the past two years where I have said to a group of women (of any size) that I have had miscarriages, at least one of them always shares that she has had one, also. There are too many of us. Why does it never fail to shock me, even though I know well by now how often it happens?

To all of you who have experienced this or other painful loss, I thought about you today, too. I felt sadness and tension, and then I released it. I sought the love and peace in my heart. After soaking it in for awhile, I released that into the universe, too.

I hope it finds you, much like a cool pebble that might just land, unexpectedly, in your upturned palm.

It’s been real, Nashville. Peace out.

The next time you see me here, I’ll be back where I left my heart years ago.

This is what I was bursting with in this post, and what made me smirky in the photo here.

Heading back to live in Austin, my friends.  With a huge grin plastered across my face.

I’m sure I’ll be tweeting all along the way there, so if you’re interested in coming along, follow me on Twitter!

I am so, so, so happy.

My resolve doesn’t celebrate The New Year.

Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? I don’t. I never have. I have always seen making them as this thing that other people do, like buying lottery tickets or having sex on airplanes. I don’t do it. I think it must be great fun considering all the hype, but I’ve never felt the particular need to do so myself. Besides, I can think of good reasons not to buy a lottery ticket (I also don’t burn money or throw it in the trash), and who wants to try that hard for an orgasm with the airplane sink faucet up their ass? Those bathrooms are seriously cramped. Count me out.

When I was 24 I had the realization that I had tried my first cigarette at 12, and technically, I’d been smoking for half my life. Whoa.

For half of my life, I’d been working on an addiction that held no positives for me or anyone around me, and something about that made me realize what a hold those damn things had on me. It was the disgusting and shocking realization I needed to be completely ready to give up the dangerous habit for good. I was successful. I have never looked back, and my only regret is that I ever picked up that first cigarette.

I had attempted quitting two previous times. I can’t remember specifically why I embarked on the effort the times that I failed. When I try, I draw up vague ghosts of reasons like, “smoking is bad, m’kay” “smokers smell even worse than patchoulied up hippies, man,” and “that shit is expensive, yo!”

None of those reasons was the right one for me. Yes, of course, not killing myself and polluting the environment SHOULD have been good enough reasons, I know. Chalk that up to Me = Assholeface. For whatever reason, I didn’t have true resolve. I wasn’t ready then. When I was, however, I was passionate and serious. Something inside of me would not let me fail.

I think this encapsulates the reasons why I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. It feels like a faddy waste of time – if I’m ready to make an important change in my life before the New Year, I see no reason to wait. If I’m not ready at the New Year, I see no reason to force a change that is so much more likely to end in failure.

Will you be ready to stop smoking/lose weight/quit being a nagging bitch of a wife in 2010?

If so, will you be ready because it’s the right time, the reason is pressing, and you feel passionate about it? Or will it just be because the page on you calendar flipped over and you feel trapped by tradition? If you fail, will you get back on the horse, so to speak, and kick that thing’s ass? Or will you give up because “it’s just a NY resolution” ?

All of that being said, I feel the need to make the point (lest you hurl rotten tomatoes and used tampons at me) that I DO think it’s AWESOME to make healthy and positive changes in your life, no matter what time of year it is.  If The New Year is your time, go for it.  If you like to make a New Year’s Resolution, I do hope you’re successful. And if you’re not, there’s always 2011, right? *wink*

As for me? I resolve to stay up too late and drink too much on New Year’s Eve.  That’s about as far as I can go.  Baby steps.  I think I’ll wait until at least when pigs fly out of my anus 2020 to even think about hitting that ‘nagging bitch of a wife’ one. I can’t imagine being anywhere near ready for that ever anytime soon.

Today’s post is my answer to The Resolution, a writing challenge at {W}rite-of-Passage.

The following people took the challenge, too.

The rhythm of our lives.

He shifts his weight
And moves on

From miles away
He says he loves me
I say it back
Then he moves on

It’s quiet at night
So much emptiness to fill
With nothing

For a spell
He returns

I stand in the kitchen
Like a cliche
I balance on heels, making dinner

Laughter floats in waves
Through the house
Echoing off the walls
Like bouncing balloons

It swells and ebbs
It rolls back and forth
Like tickle fights

There’s football on TV
My feet find comfort
His hands find my back

Our bed is warm again, briefly

Then he shifts his weight
Says he loves me
And moves on again

Takes his music and goes

Alone, in the quiet night
I can remember the melody
And hum it myself

We stay behind
Hold it down
Occupy our time

Here and there

We shift
and wait.

The stuff that gets in the way.

So, I have a confession: I have been having a hard time keeping my shit together lately.  See also: Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis (fatigue, joint pain, muscle weakness, hair loss, and more!), See also: Miscarriage Anniversary Looming, See also: Financial Distress, See also: Marital Issues, See also: I’m a headcase.

And it is true that I have had something like Writer’s Block for some time.  I have long spaces of time when I believe I have nothing to say that you will be interested in reading.  I sit down and think, “Surely I can come up with something!” And I open a text file and I stare at it, thinking.  Nothing comes.  Nothing is worth coming.

Then, other nights, I write things, posts, in text files and then I do not publish them.  Because they suck.  You would think they are stupid. (So I tell myself.) This would be more like Sharer’s Block? Blogging Anxiety? I Suckaphobia?

And then there are all the things that won’t come when I sit down to write them to you because there are other things that block them – things I can’t talk to you about.  What I mean by that is I have issues I WANT to share with you, but it feels weird to talk about this thing when I know I haven’t told you about thoooose things.

Do I write about those things?  Hell yes I do.  Is the writing good?  I think so.  Will I share it with you?

I can’t.

Some things you just can’t post to the world because they aren’t only yours to post, does that make sense?

But the more of those things that I have, the harder it gets for me to come here and talk to you about everything else, like my friends.  That’s kind of how I’ve always felt when writing these posts.  I know it’s somewhat silly to think that way, and I’m not trying to be mushy and sentimental to win you over.  It’s just the tone I always feel inside when I write to YOU.

This is not an academic essay I’m writing – though I can write those, I’ve completed tons of them in my time, and none too shabby, I’ll have you know.  It’s not a performance piece, where I just need to elicit emotion with whatever works.  It’s not fiction, where I can spin any tale just to delight.  It isn’t a review, where all I really have to do is lay out the way it works and what I think of it.

It’s an ongoing conversation I’m having with you about my life.

When there are bumps that invariably happen from my life intersecting with the lives of others, sometimes I can’t talk about those bumps.  Because it’s not my place to have the conversation that they might or might not want to have with you about THEIR lives.

So then, I guess I just have to say, Friends, there is(are) something(s) that is(are) affecting me in some way(s) that we can’t talk about.  And now I have to find a path around that(them) so I can keep talking to you about my other life stuff.

And that’s hard for me to do.  I’m emotional and the things I experience have a way of leaking and spilling out onto the rest of my life.  I should learn to compartmentalize more.  I don’t know.

And maybe this whole thing seems STUPID to you, because “DUH, LOTUS. We ALL have things we keep to ourselves.  We ALL have stories we don’t tell everyone.  Hell, most people don’t feel the need to tell everyone half the shit you think the world needs to know.  I mean, really, you tell us practically every time you have your period. GET A FILTER.”  And OKAY, FINE.  But the thing is, I’m still developing as a writer and a blogger.  This place defined itself to me from the start as My Blog: Where I Tell You What Runs Through My Head.  My idea of “what this is” has changed.  I can’t tell you what runs through my head when I’d have to tell you that Mr. C did horrible thing Y and I want to strangle his face until it turns blue and falls off.  Because you know, Mr. C has privacy rights.   I can’t tell you that I have a constant issue with Problem ABC and I think it’s because Mrs. W did batshit crazy thing X and it impacted me in a really profound way.

I can tell you about how I feel, but I can’t always tell you why. And that’s kind of douchey.  But Mr. C and Mrs. W own their own stuff, and I can’t tell it for them.

My family and friends have privacy rights.  Those assholes.

So let’s just say, that among other things, it’s taking me time, in fits and spurts to keep telling you my stories without telling you their stories.

Maybe one day there will be a time to talk about those things.  Perhaps there never will.  I’m trying to find a way to be okay with that and hoping I can just move past it.

I’m learning that it IS okay not to tell you everything (zomg) but I have to say it out loud for some reason.  I think, if I say this out loud right now, it’s going to help me move this block.

For now, maybe just saying to you that I’ll tell you most of everything, but not some stuff, will help me climb over this boulder, that mountain, and occasionally kick those rocks out of my way, so we can keep walking this path together.

I mean, it would be such a shame to miss the colors this season with you.  The foliage is so beautiful just up ahead.

I am a rock under the stars.

It is dark and warm.  The cool water shimmers and swirls in front of me, calling me to fall into it.  I close my eyes and imagine my body breaking the surface and sinking like a rock, cutting through with no resistance.  The soft, surging liquid would swallow me, and I’d be gone. Just a rock with no choice in which way to fall.

There’s a slight breeze, but it doesn’t quite push off the way it feels as though the air is actually touching me. It’s the perfect kind of warm; it is the kind of warm a girl who grew up in the country can appreciate. The kind of warm that used to waft through my screened windows and call me out onto the front porch to stare at the moon and dream with my eyes open.

I’m sitting on the back deck at my parents’ house. It is not the house I grew up in. That is about 2 miles from here. It sits, full of memories and cobwebs. It sits empty, dark, and somber.

I have not driven past it on this visit home. I haven’t driven by and seen the room off the front porch where I would sit and wait for him. The place he would often come to for me. Where I would sometimes sit alone, disappointed.

I did drive past a road I used to turn right on almost every day, literally for years. That road took me to his home and his family, of which I was made to feel a part, so many times. It took me sometimes alone, and sometimes with him. It took me.

Like he had.

Every ounce of my heart was siphoned away, every piece of my soul seemed to have been drawn out. I would say it was painless, because, after all, I wanted it that way. But it would be more truthful just to say I must have enjoyed the pain. Or at least, that I endured it because I knew the prize was worth it.

I wanted it to be.

I’m sitting out here with a chorus of crickets and other nighttime crawlies singing me the sweet song of the country on a soft, close summer night. I feel comfortable here. I can stretch out my legs and breathe in the scent of flowers growing nearby. In this moment, no one needs me. I’m at peace. Just myself, in the dark, alone. Comfortable.

Over and over again I had put all of myself into him, willing him to be more and to somehow make me whole, as such. I piled upon him expectations and needs. I was not perfect. He was not perfect. We were not perfect. We were just us and us was foolish.

He-I lost me-him and we were both abandoned by the ending we thought was in store for us. I wanted promises, he needed freedom and choices. I needed validation and hope, he demanded space and what ifs. I was incapable of giving him what he needed while still finding my own answer. I was incapable of just letting go and being me – instead I wanted to draw myself from him, control him, manipulate his choices.

If I lay my head back and stare up into the sky, I see a black canvas for miles, dotted with brilliant, shiny specks of electricity and power from so far away. They gleam and sparkle; a new one seems to pop into the tapestry after every few beats of my heart. If I just stare this way for awhile, what I think I see and know changes over and over again.

I expect it to look a certain way, but I can’t control what unfolds before me. I have ideas about what is out there in my view, but it is flowing and changing constantly, right in front of me, and there is nothing I can do about it. Some of the changes are noticeable, some are imperceptible to me. I sense that.

It would be foolish of me to try to force the stars to stand out in the sky in a specific order. They would call me mad and lock me in padded rooms.

I’ll never really know if it was right to part ways. I think of him from time to time and I wonder who he is now. Is he still that same person who was my best friend, or is the man he has become someone different entirely? I don’t regret those years, or the ones that have followed. I’m not sure if life has turned out exactly how I’d hoped it would after I kissed him that last time and he turned away. What I do hope now, however, is that he is happy. Because I love him in some way still, and that’s been true since the day I walked away. I hope he is happy with the way the sky looks when he lays his head back.

I can close my eyes and the reams of paper that the story of my life stands starkly on flow through my mind. I can slow it down and inspect this and that. I can speed it up to avoid things. I can ponder over the way the ink fell and what the story might be like if it had been different. I can even look at the pages that lie ahead, waiting for the stab of the pen, with concern. I guess I can worry about those pages. I guess I can be afraid. I could try to control the pen that wants to flow on its own with fancy strokes and flourishes.

It would be silly.

The way the stars in the sky arrange themselves in a predictable and yet uncontrollable fashion is a beautiful thing. Every night they show up just the way they are supposed to, and they don’t need me to worry about it, or wonder if they are doing it right.

They end up where their paths intend them to, and that is that.

Like a stone falling into cool, deep waters, effortlessly.

Like me.