words...ridiculously sentimental words...

i wrote a letter with (i'm sure) too much sentiment.  then i let all my stupid, sentimental words spill all over facebook.  now i feel like a complete fool.  i'm embarrassed and irritated with myself.  i really need to stop flooding everywhere.  i don't even know why i do it.  i just have too much inside of me and i can't seem to find enough places to put it.  i don't want to burden people directly, but i can't carry it all myself.  so i send it into the void and hope maybe i'll get a prayer or something.  and maybe my struggles will help someone else somehow...if nothing else, you can be grateful you're not a basket case like me.  you can be grateful you're not single anymore.  being single in a world of married people really isn't great.  watching people with their significant companion and their adorable children wrenches my heart.  i miss my married friends, i love them and i am so happy for their happiness, but i don't fit in with them and it hurts so much.  i don't know how to be around them.  i don't know how to set up a "play date" when i have no children to contribute.  maybe i could borrow a niece and/or nephew...i've always felt so out of place anyway, but now i feel like a complete alien so much of the time.  except with the few single friends i still have...particularly Will, but now he's gone.  i know, i need to get over it already.  i'm sorry i'm such a mess.  i'm sorry i didn't make better choices so i could be in a better place.  i did what i thought was right at the time and now i'm just not sure what to do.  i wish i could have just one more long embrace.  i wish i could have just one more moment.  or i wish i could find someone new who makes me feel like home.

i'm sorry for all my stupid, sentimental, foolish words.  i'm sorry for the stupid, sentimental, foolish feelings that won't leave me in peace.  i'm just so sorry i'm not a better, more interesting and endearing person.  i just want to stop being me, just for a little while.  i want to know what it's like to be a normal person, just for a little while.

loss is no disaster

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

 

~ Elizabeth Bishop

 

this poem has been on my mind recently.  i'm trying to convince myself that my life is not a disaster, though it does feel that way.  i lose too much, too many, but it isn't a disaster, right?  it's just life. life is loss...and gain.  i can't lose something if i don't have it in the first place.

Marilyn Monroe said, "Sometimes good things have to fall apart so better things can fall together."  if i really look back in my life i can see how good things have filled in the space where other things have fallen apart.  

i'm struggling right now.  it's less that "things" are falling apart and more that i am.  i wonder if the day will ever come when i don't fall apart. i'm overly sensitive, weak, afraid, and i care too much about everything.  i don't just wear my heart on my sleeve, i let it consume my every thought and action.  i wish that meant that i was kind and loving all the time.  but what it means is that i think and act irrationally and emotionally too much of the time.  sometimes i love too quickly and too deeply.  sometimes i hold on to hurt and betrayal too long.  i'm not very good at patience or forgiveness sometimes.  i need to find a way to pull myself together and keep myself from falling all apart.  my heart and my sensitivity could be a great strength instead of the terrible weakness it is currently.  i guess i just need more faith, more trust in Heavenly Father.

when i was little i had a lot more faith and trust than i do now.  i had plenty of hope and optimism too.  but life has beaten me down and i wasn't strong enough to fight back.  sometimes i feel like i'm barely holding on.  i'm so tired, so weary, so lonely, i don't know how to hold on much longer without some help.  i'm just having a little trouble seeing it right now.  it'll come...i don't know when and i don't know how, but it will.

vacancy

my Will is going away.  tonight was the last time i'll see him until at least Christmas...then who knows when.  i don't have the words to explain why he means so much to me.  being with him is the closest i've ever felt to that ever illusive "home" i've ached for my whole life.  i don't care that he'll never be in love with me, as my dear friend, he loves me better than any man ever has.  he has seen the depths of my darkness but sees me as so much more than that.  and that's only the beginning.  he is truly phenomenal.

but now he's moving.  he'll be more than 1000 miles away and i don't know what to do.  i don't think he's ever lived so far from everyone he knows.  i moved only 300 miles away and couldn't handle it.  but he's amazing, he'll be fine.  i don't know that i'll be fine though.  the gaping hole he filled so well will be left vacant again.  most people don't know this about me, but somewhere inside i have a little voice that is perpetually hopeful.  that voice is telling me that it may not be such a tragedy.  first of all, he isn't dead, he's just living in another state.  with all the technology these days, we'll be able to keep in contact and he'll come home sometimes...and maybe i can take a trip sometime to visit him.  the voice also says, maybe his exit will allow another entrance.  there is space here to be filled and the hope inside me says, maybe it will be filled with someone better than i can imagine.  isn't it about time i'm truly loved?  isn't it about time i find an amazing man who is more than just a friend?  that is Will's one flaw, you know...he's not in love with me.  it's ok, i don't need him to be...but i do want someone amazing to love me.

so there's this new guy that i met a couple weeks ago.  it's possible that he could be interested in me...perhaps...i'm trying to not read too much into it, and i'm trying to be patient, but i think he'd be pretty amazing.  he's temple worthy and he attends; he helped pass the Sacrament on Sunday; and he is taller than me, physically rather fit, and rather handsome.  those last items are why i'm not so sure he could be attracted to me, but ya never know, stranger things have happened.

i really hope that the voice inside is right.  i'm heartbroken that i don't know when i'll see Will again, he gives the best hugs and i love every second i spend with him, but i'm trying to be brave and not let it bring me down.  i don't know when i'll see the new guy again, or if anything will even happen between us, but i'm trying to believe that good things can happen in my love life.

i have so much love to give and i just want someone to let me give it!

kindness begins with me

in Sacrament Meeting today the speakers talked about kindness.  generally i think i'm a kind person...outwardly anyway.  i need to improve my thoughts in this respect.  i'm not always kind in the things i think about people.  it's worst when i drive in the car; i get impatient with some of the other drivers and call them morons in my mind and yell for them to get out of the way (even though i know they can't hear me).  i'd never call a person a moron to their face, so why am i calling them one when they can't hear me?  the problem is generally not with them, it's with me.  i need to be more patient and kind, not only on the road, but with the general public with whom i interact at work, and also with my family and a few certain friends who just seem to know how to push the wrong button.  i have improved over the years, i'm slower to anger and try to hold my tongue and walk away before things get too heated; i really try to be kind, but it's often to the point of being a pushover, which is not so good either. 

the person i tend to be most unkind toward, though, is myself.  i've noticed recently that my thoughts toward myself are too often negative and demeaning.  i've learned over the years to kindly accept compliments from others with a smile and a "thank you" but i don't know how to compliment myself.  maybe learning to be kinder to myself will help make me kinder to others...and vice versa. 

today as i listened to the speakers i thought of two things in particular, besides simply my need to be kinder: 1) Sydney Bristow. 2) the Weasel.

1) i've  been watching a bit of Alias this week.  it's what i do now and then when i feel a little lost and weary from the world.  the show is my favorite for many reasons, one of which is Sydney Bristow.  in so many ways, she is the person i want to be...i mean, if i could choose a fictional character to be reincarnated as (if i believed in such things), it would be her (well, not entirely, she dresses immodestly sometimes and she sleeps with men she's not married to, but as far as looks and personality go, i want to be her).  the reason i thought of her during the talk is because she is one of the kindest people (fictional or not) that i've every seen.  don't get me wrong, she can kick your trash and she doesn't really hesitate to kill people if they are trying to kill her, but she is generally very kind to everyone, even if they aren't being particularly kind to her.  she is strong, brave, meek, sincere, independent, happy, friendly, versatile, and loving (as long as you're not trying to kill her or someone she loves).  anyway, this probably doesn't make much sense to anyone reading this but it doesn't have to.  i'm just kind of writing because it's on my mind and i haven't written in a while.  we'll move on to the second thought because it's the more significant one.

2) the reason i thought of the Weasel during a talk about kindness isn't because he was particularly kind, though he was when he wanted to be; it's because the title i gave him all those years ago is an unkind one.  over the years i have worked very hard to forgive him and repair the damage he caused inside of me and the wreck i let him make of my life.  i don't hate him, i never really hated him.  he abused my kindness and generosity and he is a big part of the reason i am not as kind and generous as i once was.  but what i realized today is that i can never truly forgive and be free of the trouble he caused until i stop calling him such an unkind name.  he is the only person to whom i've ever given an unkind nickname (as far as i can think of anyway), and no matter what he did to me, i should be the kinder person and stop holding it all against him.  there was a time when he was one of my dearest friends and a man i loved with too much of my silly little heart.  from now on i'll try to remember the better things and the good times we had and let go of the rest.  i still don't like his real name, though, and since i don't know what else to call him, i'll try to just not write or talk...or even think about him at all.  he's been out of my life for nearly 6 years now, it's about time i finish forgiving and forgetting.

my quest for the week then (and longer, really, but i thought a week seemed like a doable goal; i prefer to take life a day or week at a time, less overwhelming that way) is to focus on being more kind to those around me and also to myself.  i'll also try harder to notice the kindnesses i receive from others.

p.s. sorry this isn't particularly well written or coherent, my brain is sleeping and a little mushy, but i wanted to say something about what i learned about kindness before it slipped away entirely.  thanks for reading! :)

the me you see

sometimes i forget.  i'm with me all the time and so i know myself, my intentions, my humor, my intelligence, my dark and my light.  i'm afraid the brief contact you have with me over facebook or my blog paints me as a rather dismal and depressed person...and on one hand i am...on the other hand i am the opposite (not in a bipolar way though, i promise).

i guess i forget how i may be perceived.  i get so little response to anything that i figure people are just ignoring me.  the reason this is what you see of me is because it's my writing and my writing began as a sort of coping mechanism.  i've been pretty lonely and isolated a lot of my life because i'm shy and a little different than most and often misunderstood (partly because of the depression, partly because my personality, sense of humor, dreams, goals and desires would have fit better in an earlier time period and therefore, i have never really fit in with the majority of my contemporaries).  in high school, writing became my outlet and my companionship.  The Page always understands me, always listens, and is always interested in and supportive of everything i give to it.  since very few people ever comment on things i say here or on facebook, i tend to forget that anyone might be reading.  sometimes i come to these places with the vague hope that somehow my weak and admittedly rather passive-aggressive attempts to request support, validation, kindness, friendship, or sympathetic contact will be well answered. most of the time it does not turn out that way.  i am generally left alone.  i suppose i should be used to it by now.  i've never really had a mentor or someone who took notice and reached out to pull me from myself.  i have so much to give but no one wants it.  especially now.  all my friends have moved on to their own families, their husband or wife and children.  there's no room for solitary me.  this is just one more circumstance that widens the chasm between me and the rest of the world. 

i am grateful for the few who make an effort to keep contact, invite me around or come when i ask.  Bestest Friend, Shygirl and i try to get together a couple times a month...it's nowhere near enough contact for me, but i'm grateful for what they are able to give.  The Artist and his dear, sweet wife still come around a couple times a month.  i want to hang out with others of my married friends but i don't want to step on toes or get in the way of their domestic responsibilities.  i don't want to be alone anymore and i don't understand why i have to be.

i've signed up for online dating again.  it's no use.  all i get are skanky old men (seriously, 60 and 70 year olds) sending me flirts or saying my picture is pretty.  what am i going to do with a geriatric?  no thanks.  i guess i'm not phenomenal or the most beautiful or successful or whatever but i am kind of a catch and i don't understand why the nice and good men can't see that. 

recently i've been a little caught up in nostalgia the last few days.  kind of a longing for the past and a great desire to go back about 10 years and change some of the decisions i made then.  i want to soak up more of the affection that so freely flowed through the institute back then.  i miss those dear people.  i miss walking into the room and hearing a chorus of people so happy to see me, and all the arms outstretched and eager to embrace me.  i miss having something to do every day that involved at least a few, if not a whole group of people.  i miss the weasel before he was a weasel.  i miss game nights and mini road trips.  i miss movies and conversations and frisbee and Leatherby's or Village Inn or Dee's.  i miss dances and parties and just hanging out at the institute.  i miss the hope and contentment.  i miss all the single people who were so similar to myself.  i really miss the hugs.

can i go back in time for just a couple of days to revive my hope and refill my reservoir?  i don't remember the last time i had a really good hug or a satisfying conversation.  i'm so tired all the time because my reserve is empty.  i need more fillers and fewer drains in my life but i don't know where to find them.  i enjoy my job and i'm generally in a happy place when i'm there.  i love hanging out with my niece and nephews.  i love the time i do get to spend with friends.  i wish i had more time with the people i adore.  i wish i could catch up with everyone else so i could stop being left out all the time.  or i wish i could find that amazing job or the best-selling book idea and become rich, then i'd just buy more friends...ok, maybe not.

anyway, the point behind this silly tangent is that i'm more than what you see here and i'll try to be more positive and post more positive things instead of just writing as an outlet.  invite me around and you'll see i'm really quite delightful in person.