Sunday, December 6, 2015

Through the Window


I gave my order - always the same order for a girl who finds a certain comfort in repetition. But when I drove up to pay for and accept my coffee, my routine was broken. In the background of the busy coffee shop, wearing a uniform and making my hot drink, I thought I saw the profile of a girl I once knew.

Memory flooded into my brain, infecting my body with questions and unexpected heartache. This was a girl I barely knew, but who made a name for herself. She was the one who's parents lied and cheated and mixed up her mind and her life. She was the girl that I was almost friends with before her life began spiraling.

She was the girl who walked out to the edge of the bridge just to spit in the face of world, but then lost her footing. She was the girl who drove a hundred miles an hour on the dirt road just to feel the wind in her hair, but then found that she had no control.

This was the girl who was found by a dozen young men in the worst of places, all of whom owned the worst of intentions.

Yet she was also the girl that mourned the child created that night - the young life she lost out on the edge of that bridge, out on that dark dirt road.

When she turned to bring my coffee to the counter where I would be served from, her eyes caught mine and I realized that she was, in fact this girl, and I wondered if she would recognize me. She waved a little, and I smiled uncertainly and waved back.  She didn't smile at me. Then, as if embarrassed, (or perhaps she simply had other customers to attend to?) she ducked out of my line of vision. The window slid open and a different girl took my money, gave my coffee, and interrupted my thoughts and agonized memories.

My mind raced, wondering not for the first time if there was anything I could have done to change things for her. I knew that such thoughts were ludicrous, I was so young at the time, yet there was a need in my head to blame someone for her broken life - even if that someone was me.

Coffee in hand, I thanked the stranger woman and drove off very slowly, trying to catch a glimpse of the one I had known and wishing she would smile at me and somehow fill a hole that I hadn't realized needed filling.  Sure enough, she walked by, and on her way, gave me a small smile and a quick nod, as if to say that she would be alright.  Or at least, I hoped that was what it meant.

I beamed a too-relieved, too-friendly smile at her and drove away feeling lost and alone and curious and empty.  Perhaps that's the price of not knowing people well enough. Or perhaps that's the price of knowing them just well enough for it to hurt.

Friday, November 20, 2015

Midnight Burdens

Hello.

It's been a while since I've even thought of you.  Which shows that I've healed some.  But the fact that I'm lying in bed now, in tears over the mess you left behind, well perhaps that shows that some things never heal.  We simply find a way to store our worst memories in the darkest corners of our brain.  And we hope that they'll somehow waste away into nothingness so that we won't have to deal with them any more.

Anger is only proof that feelings still exist, they say, and so I must still have feelings for you.  And really after all, you are the reason for half my insecurities about marriage, so how could I forget you?

But see, the truth is that I can't even hate you.  I tried - hating you would be much easier than this.  But no, I have too many memories, too much invested in your children, too much pain and heartache and love and memory for that.  Sometimes I wish I could run away from myself.  Maybe then I wouldn't remember how you betrayed my father, how you lied to your wife, how you blasphemed our God.

And then, equal to or worse than these sins, you did the thing that you should never have done.  It would be better for you to have had a millstone tied around your neck and for you to be thrown into the sea than what you did.  You hurt your children - no, you tortured them.  You used them as pawns in your childish game of hate, you twisted the words of our healing Savior into lies to make them soul-sick, you made them cry again and again, and yet they chose to spend time with you.  Because they craved the father they hoped you would be - the father you stopped being a long time before you left them.

And yet, after all this I cannot bring myself to hate you. 

In the end, I can only feel an exhausted sorrow for you.  Exhausted because every time I try to justify anything you've done, I cannot.   And sorrowful because I know that you understood Jesus Christ.

Whether or not you surrendered (or will surrender) to Him, I doubt I will ever know in this life.  But I know for sure that you understood and believed in Him at one point.  And knowing that you had a glimpse of his glory and peace and you are now living without Him - that is the worst of this tragedy.

And though I hate the filth that you created and the brokenness that you left behind, I hope that someday you look up from the pit you've fallen into, and you that see His face again.  Because you must miss Him. 

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Untitled

     I once knew a man who, when thinking, thought only to analyze: to break open, to lift up, to turn over, to discover, or to burn.  He knew no other way.

     So when this friend of mine turned his complex mind to God and the world filled with things he could neither see nor touch, he found only questions.  Questions!  Five hundred burning, churning, ripping, boiling questions that he could not answer, and an ocean of pain.

     When, upon further consideration, he could not deny the existence of the One, he found himself angry at It's existence, It's presence, and It's seeming circumvention.  He found himself crying out at the injustice of the answers he feared from the questions he could not satisfy.  And so he stood right where he was and he screamed curses to try to fill the ever-present silence, silence born of his fear.

     But he had asked so many questions that he forgot to keep searching for the truth - or even for the answers.  He did not notice the truth of the fact that the enemy was in himself. 

     And the enemy was growing.  Mercilessly feeding on his organs and drinking from his blood, little by little, it turned his heart from a heart of flesh to a heart of darkness.

     And every time my friend thought he caught a glimpse of this parasite within himself, he found it too terrible - too terrible! It was easier, he found, to spend his moments cursing God and dying, rather than confront the evil and the pain and the brokenness that lived within his own chest.

     And so he drank a bitter draught of rage each day, and it fueled him to stand, to live, and to be.  But at night, in the darkness of a solemn midnight, when he could no longer preoccupy his own complex mind, he considered the other side of the great conversation.  The dreadful What If? 

     What If?  Oh the torturous thought! What if by raging against the One, he was damning himself forever to be apart from the only thing that could save his anguished soul?  And yet, through the stillness of the night, there whispered a voice both gentle and sure,

     "Ye who are weary of whipping my back, come home and find rest in my arms."


Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Now That You're Gone

Cynthia Vagabond

You played a hand full of stinging words and hours spent shutting me out.  I always wondered why you hated me.  Was it a misdirected loathing meant for your parents? Meant for yourself? Perhaps I'll never know, now that you're gone.  Unfinished puzzles always bother me, especially when the last piece was a heart.


Eric the Red

I thought for a time that we were coming to something close to friendship - something close to a family-like state of familiarity and love.  You told me that in time we may become more.  Do you remember the night that we sat up and watched the meteor shower, on the bank of the river Swift? It is memories like these that haunt me when I remember that you've found another - that you've found wholeness without me.  Please know... that I wish it could've been me.


Finn Rivers

Why is it, do you think, that some of the most beautiful people always seem to make some of the worst choices? I tried to tell you the garden you were running towards was full of thorns, full of poisoned, adulterated love.  But of course you didn't listen.  You never could.  Still, I hurt when I saw you grieve due to your poor choices.  And now, now that you're bitter and closed, I grieve all the more.  Try to find yourself again.  Try to find a way to stay gold.

Margaret Walsh

I'm sorry I wasn't there.  When you got the call, when you sunk helplessly to the ground, when your cold soul ached for someone and asked for me.   I tried to reach you - but fear (my usual enemy) kept me away.  I wish I had jumped from the train, made the choice.  May your kind heart mend.  May you someday find forgiveness for me.

Nightingale

You take the backseat don't you? You look at the world, wonder at it, but you never live in it.  You claim that it's your lot, you claim that you try.  But your words can only go so far.  If you never choose, then you will only continue on this path of loss. So go.  Solve the mysteries in life, chase the meteors, love through the pain, and cry with the ones that count.  And try not to mind when nothing works - when no one cares.  Life isn't so much about how much we attain, but rather, how much we attempt.  





Sunday, September 20, 2015

Very Funny

Sometimes life plays such cruel jokes. 

And you know, no one gets why this is so hard, because cousins are those people that you don't really know, the people you see every few years at holiday functions, and that you struggle to make small talk with. Cousins are rarely the people that you've grown up with, that you've adopted into your heart, that you've prayed for so often and so fervently.

It all started with the divorce. My aunt and uncle - my parents best friends - were ending it. He cheated, she called for a divorce, fingers were pointed, hearts were torn. And their four girls were caught in the mix. Four children caught in the mix of the lies, and deceit, and anger of adults. 

My aunt didn't want them caught up in all of it, she tried to save them from as much of the pain as possible, and I think that's part of why those four girls spent so much time at my house from this time on. Those four cousins of mine became half (if not whole) sisters, and we shared time, rooms, and even a vacation. 

Time goes on. I ache for the uncle I thought I had, and I pray for him to come back. After a while though, those prayers become fewer and farther between, and I begin to pray that my aunt will find happiness, and that the girls can have a daddy again someday. Some how. I pray, pray, pray.

In the meantime, six years pass, and these little girls grow up. The older ones and I start talking about big girl things - dates, and jobs, and the not-too-distant prospect of their college choices.  

Then, plot twist, just when everything seems settled, Prince Charming swoops in and saves my aunt from the fate of loneliness. He proposes. He marries her. And I hate him for it. 

Don't get me wrong. He's the best guy she's had an interest in since the divorce and he truly seems to care for the kids. But he's moving them all across the country tomorrow, and they have little promise of returning. Sure, they say they might be back for Christmas, but when any promise goes from a "definitely" to a "maybe" in one month, I know they're just saying it to give the poor kids some hope.

And yet, although I know it's bogus, I told my cousin sisters that I would see them all at Christmas when I hugged them goodbye. Sometimes I think we need the lies we tell ourselves, just to get us through.  Through that is, until the car door shuts, the tail lights fade from their faces, and I can be alone to weep.

So this is life's cruel joke. I spend so much time praying that she'll find the perfect fit, and when she does, he takes away four people that I've grown to love in the meantime. Four little impressionable, lovable, great people. People I'll never get to see grow up the rest of the way, people who will most likely find husbands in their new state, and settle down in a place where I can't reach them on a day to day basis.

And don't try to sell me that "long distance relationships are totally great" crap, cause I know that's a lie. People never invest in their absent friends like they do in their present ones. No matter how hard you try.

So here I am, mourning alone, trying to be happy for them, yet only finding myself in all this mess. How typically narcissistic of me.  I know God has a plan for them, and girls that grow up with a father that does more than skip out on paying child support for them have a much better chance for a normal and healthy emotional life.

But you know, I think the thing that terrifies me most is that I'm going to run into one of these cousins four years from now at a Christmas Eve party, and while we stand there sipping our punch, I'm going to struggle to find something to talk about. Maybe we'll just resort to the weather.


Monday, August 17, 2015

Mentors and Monsters

I wasn't who you wanted me to be, was I?  You had high hopes for me, for what you thought I could be, yet when I found my contentment down the road I was meant to travel, you were disappointed.  So you dropped me.

But not in the merciful way of reaction and anger (which would give me reason to discredit you), nor either in the way that is easy to brush off - sadness and withdrawal. No, instead you chose the more painful way. You chose to find someone else right in front of me, and dote on this newfound protegee, and just let me watch.

I know that I'm not meant to be what you'd like me to be.  I thought for a time that was my calling, but I was fooling myself. I'll probably never know exactly what you think of my choices, and I won't be the one to ruin the gossamer relationship we still have.  I feel as though I might bring harsh feelings to the forefront if I begin the paramount conversation of what exactly you think of me now.

But in the end, I just wish I could still be accepted by you.  In the end, I want to be the student that achieved mastery, and who made the master proud.  And short of that, I wish I could've been the student that chose a different path, yet could still be accepted, still be loved.

But perhaps it is not in the nature of masters to accept.

Sunday, July 26, 2015

Some Thoughts on the Present

   Writing is a strange beast.
   I was trying to think of why I have been having trouble writing lately.
   Was it that my writer's brain needed new stimulation? Some of my best works of both fiction and non-fiction were produced in a time that I was taking college classes - some on writing.  Perhaps I needed more learning, more enrichment, more.
   Then I remembered a book that I read once, where a writer got block when he got into a relationship.  As it turned out, the person he was with was stifling a part of him, and he needed to get out of the relationship or give up on his writing career.  I wondered if I had traded my writing for something different... then I shook such foolishness from my mind.  Of course I wasn't blocked by my true love.  I wrote one of my favorite books while we were dating, and the analogy was quite imperfect (the writer who was blocked in the story was only blocked because the foolish girl he was with wanted him to be someone he wasn't, while my husband loves the person I am).  This explanation could not prove to be the truth.
   Then it hit me.  I've been trying to harness an agent for my most recent book - and I've been trying for four months.  It has been a long and frustrating road at times, and I think it has bred a poison in me.  A poison called greed.  Greedy for publication, for a book deal, for commercialization.  And armed with this greed, I have successfully sunk into a completely blocked writer.  A writer I do not want to be - a writer who cannot produce.
   In the end, I dearly want to be a published author, and I've always thought that if I persist long enough, I will be able to attain this goal.  So even if I don't publish the book that I'm submitting to agents now, I'll write new books, and submit those.  Even if I have to go to writer's conferences and grab agents by the throats, that's what I'll do (in a gentle, convincing way, of course).  I'll make it through.  But the thing I was missing was this simple truth:

   I should write for the mere joy of writing.

   If I miss out on this, then I could be neither happily published, nor truly alive.

   So back to the page I'll go, this time with a renewed respect and zeal.  And perhaps I'll come out on the other side with joy for the fact that I have written, with a joy for the fact that I am alive.

Friday, July 24, 2015

Strings



As I sit writing, I am surrounded by strings - strings of conversation, strings of emotions, the strings that make up our lives.  So many strings floating lightly and delicately through the air like discarded spider’s webs.
I wonder if I’m the only one here who notices it.  Everyone here is so immersed in the reasons they came - food, conversation, work.  Everyone living in their own sphere, aware of only their own strings.
The men sitting in the table next to me have come to discuss some sort of business plan.  They are different in race, marital status, and age, yet business has united them in conversation and goal.  
The girl sitting diagonally across from me reminds me of a character in a movie who had to cut off her hair so that pirates would think her a boy and ignore her.  Yet – this girl is lacking in spunk and depth.  The way she's laughing too hard at the boys across from her tells me that she is immersed in only one of a few different strings.  Attaining, perhaps, or pleasing, or keeping.
There’s a young man in the corner who is charging his phone and listening to music I suppose through those earphones.  His hunched disposition tells me that he is not only unaware of the other strings in this room – he does not want to be aware of them.
And then my eyes graze a girl about my age, who is sitting by herself, sipping a hot drink.  I remember seeing her come in and observing her long, slender, carmel-colored legs, and her dark, shining, braided hair.  I remember thinking she was one of those people that make me wonder if  all humans truly are one species.  Yet, when my eyes scan her face, I realize she is looking straight back at me.  She stares back at me unashamedly until I finally look away.  And I wonder.
Is she another, like me, who is interested in seeing the strings? Does she wonder about the mother sitting in the corner without a wedding, or the couple who won’t meet each other’s eyes, like I do?  Does she look not just to find, but to see and to understand?
Perhaps.  But it’s a question I’ll never have the answer to.  Because while I am brave enough to look for the strings and wonder about them, I’m not brave or free enough to track them down and find their meanings. 
And so I’ll sit here amongst the strings, seeing without understanding, and wondering a bit which is the better fate: to never see the strings that surround you, or to see them without understanding?