so many possible futures

I had a vision the other day. It was so real -- like I was physically living it out in that moment. It only took a few seconds, a few heartbeats...

I visioned unlocking a front door and stepping into a house, and I knew it was our house, a house I owned with my husband (yay! a husband!). And the dog pushed past me to get inside (yay! a dog!), and I walked in and set down the baby carrier with my baby sleeping in it (yay! I had a baby!), and dropped my keys back into my bag, and just took a moment to look around the room and think: Wow. This is good. This is my life, and it's really good.
I could feel the sun on my skin, and see the dust motes in the air, and hear my baby snuffle quietly in her sleep and the dog lapping water noisily down the hall.

And then the next second I realized I was actually alone in my kitchen, staring out the window at the January rain, holding a cup of tea in my cold hands. And I didn't really know how to feel about that.

The Alchemist

I kept trying to put in a quote from this book, but I just wanted to keep adding and adding to it... so I decided to simply tell you: you should read the whole thing.

The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho.
It is one of my all-time favorites.
It basically rocks.

holding out for the win

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you,
then they fight you, then you win.

--Mahatma Gandhi

how could it be any other way?

the words I needed to hear

You don't know me yet, but I remember you. I know what's happened to you, and it makes my heart sad. There was nothing wrong with you though; it wasn't wrong because of you. You are so small! The grown-ups were supposed to protect you. But they tricked you instead, to make you do what they wanted -- and that was mean. That was really mean, wasn't it? And it made you so confused, how nothing seemed to go the way you thought it should. But you weren't crazy, and you weren't wrong, and just because you're only five it doesn't mean you don't know some things -- like when you feel yucky inside, it's because someone is not treating you right. That is true, even if you're the only one around who can see it.

I want you to know something. If I had been there, if I had had just one glimpse of the photographs, just one minute in your company, I would have known that you were not happy. I would have known that you were trapped. I would have known that someone else's secret was eating you alive. (It wasn't your secret, sweetness. You are only five; you aren't even able to do the kind of things that warrant such secrets.) I know you try hard to be invisible, but I still would have seen you. And I would have smiled, the kind of smile that went all the way to my eyes -- the kind you've only seen a few times, ever -- so that you would know that you were seen.

I know what your daddy said, and the things he did, and I know what your mommy said, and the things she didn't do. If I could be there with you I would tell you that out loud, and I would sit with you and hold you close and cry quiet tears into your hair, and I would wrap my arms around you tight -- but not too tight. Just tight enough so that even if you needed to close your eyes, you would still know that I was there. Then I would take your hand and we would walk out of that place without even bothering to pack. (But you could take your blankie and your baby, if you wanted to.) And if you needed to cry, that would be okay. Because I would know, even if you didn't understand it yet, that you were crying for what you never had, and not really for what you were leaving behind.

Process Letter #1

I thanked you once, for staying. I didn't know then that it was the cowardly thing to do; that a braver man would have seen the harm he was doing, and walked away from us, come what may. You are one of the most selfish people I know. You never put us first; not really, not once. All you cared about was your own comfort, your own pain. You are disgusting to me, and I never want to see you again.

Right now, I still hate you. For all the things you did and didn't do, the way you inflicted pain and grief, the damage you did to my soul. But eventually, I will not even think of you anymore. I am changing my name, I am changing the way I think, and I am changing the way I treat myself. I am separating myself from you in every way I can, severing all connection. YOU should have done it, but you didn't. So I will. I am. I choose a different life, and a different way. New. Apart.

You will not see me anymore. You will not hear my voice. You will never meet my children or watch them play. And it's your fault, not mine. Time is up. I waited my whole life for you, and now I'm done.

So. Goodbye.

daily affirmation

I am brave enough to understand my pain.
I am strong enough to move beyond it.
I am brave enough to understand my pain.
I am strong enough to move beyond it.
I am brave enough to understand my pain...

fragments

I want to write stories, pretty ones, about ladies in sparkly red dresses, and a mommy who cries. About fairies and foxes and bears, and frightened little girls who do big brave things, about wolves who swallow stones and about sisters who cough up diamonds. I want to make something new, and beautiful. But sometimes the urgency of it makes me sad. Like I'm still trying to cancel out all the bad things, all the ugliness. I shouldn't need to do that. I should create nice things just because I want to. Just for myself. Not to make up for other people's actions. Sometimes I feel like that's what I'm doing. But not always.

What if the sister who spoke frogs and lizards and creepy crawling things was the nice one? What if it saved her from a dismal life, married to a greedy king? What if the diamonds and rubies cut like the faceted stones that they are, and never stopped coming up, with every word, every careless hum, every painful clearing of the deeply scarred throat, until she choked on words whether they were spoken or not and her panicked eyes pleaded for an end? But I guess it wouldn't matter what was in her eyes. Because her husband wouldn't be looking into her eyes, would he? He'd be watching the emeralds sparkle as they fell into his open hand.

I do love delicious fragments of story. Maybe someday, when I'm better, I'll be able to string them together. Or maybe all they'll ever be is fragments -- and delicious, still.

away

Poor gosling. It hurts to be lost. And worse to be home with no kind of homecoming... I'll be lucky if I can do as well as you when all this's done; just a bit out of breath, a bit bruised and scratched, a bit wiser and sadder for it all.

Shannon Hale, The Goose Girl

farewell for now

I can't fight the monsters on my own anymore; my memories are too vivid to be borne. It's time to call in professionals.

hope someone will save me this time

one step behind

You sit alone and guess your fate
You wonder why the same, the same thing
will happen to you on and on and on

And you can't feel another day
so you give your heart to something fake
and now you just want it all, it all, it all back

Inside your heart this voice it cries
Sick of breakin, sick of lies
that you have believed for so, for so long

Something's feeling not so right
You feel like giving up the fight
and now you just want to hide inside your bed

But outside your door, this love it paces
the only one who seems to 'ave made it
and it don't care how long, how long it has to wait...


lyrics from One Step Behind, by Ian Beert

who we are

I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there.

Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower