My Kindness Shall Not Depart From Thee

Things aren't perfect. I haven't suddenly realized that when I thought I was wrong, I was wrong. I still feel lost and unsure and like I need to make some decisions again, come into my own again. But I have felt God's love for me today. I have heard the Spirit's sweetest, most precious assurances that I have not been forgotten, that the Lord loves me because I am His, that He will continue to love me and to care for me wherever my life takes me. I don't feel empowered as I once did. But I feel loved, and it is enough. I know that I have an incomprehensible, difficult journey ahead of me. But today, at least, I know the Lord will never leave me to suffer alone.

Maybe it's time to grow up. Maybe I need to start letting go of my childish fears and longings. Maybe I'm starting down a path that will change me, make me stronger and better and older. Maybe this week the Lord let me feel so utterly alone so I would remember that I don't have to be lonely anymore.

This illness, these disorders, or whatever it is- it's something I've been hiding behind. I've been using it to rationalize my behavior to myself. I can't accept that anymore. I have to come to terms with my mind and my thought process, with my particular line of reasoning. This low that I'm experiencing will not be the last. I have to learn to live within the realms of my emotional capacity. I do not, however, have to let these moments (hiccups, stumbles, temporary regression) define me. The Lord has given me this life. It is a precious, brief gift. I can't waste it in misery. The atonement makes my happiness possible. I pray that I may find joy in these brief, shining moments. I pray that I may remember the warmth of His eternal embrace and perfect love.

So what am I going to do about it? I feel like the answer to that question is the answer to all of my problems. It's there, lurking somewhere beneath the surface of my hopes and dreams, and if I can persuade it to show itself, I'll know how to make this sorrow mean something more, become something better.

"The son of God hath descended below all things. Art thou greater than He?"

Borne on the air by a choir angelic
Your words fly to me and adhere to my failing heart

And in that moment, I'm in thy loving arms
Filled so completely
With
What it is to be
A child of God.

~~~

Recorded 6/27/10

Twenty-One Going On Three

An inexplicable sadness washed over me this morning as I cruised State Street on my way home from rehearsal. You see, there was this awkward moment after I said goodbye to Meg when we ended up walking the same way to our cars. For some reason, I was unable to find anything intelligent to say. I ended up babbling about Sub Zero ice cream and the summer heat.

Meg is so grown up, so mature, so personable, so very much a woman. I, on the other hand, am awkward and juvenile. I still love Disney movies with all my heart; my favorite band is Hanson; I tend to watch movies over and over again; I live in a state of immediacy, concerned with my immediate future and feelings; I find it hard to express myself, and therefore spend much of my time being frustrated. All things I associate with childishness. By the next light, my mind had drawn a vivid parallel to a small child imagining that she is a mother, cradling her baby doll, smothering it with sticky-faced kisses, placing it gently in her own bed and insisting that it sleep. Then, satisfied, she toddles off to her plastic kitchen to place pizzaappleburgercorn in the oven for "some bites".

I have been playing at adulthood. I have created this life for this version of myself who yearns to live abroad and to really make her mark, but I live at home, safe in my bed with my teddy bear and my Harry Potter books on tape. The whole situation was punctuated, perhaps, by how deeply I was touched by Toy Story 3 and how out of place I felt at Jenn's bridal shower; my thoughts neatly illustrated by the day's events.

I really honestly feel like I've been living a lie. The sadness and the horror and the loneliness of such an epiphany seized me, and my confidence died. Today I grieve for myself, for the person I was, the person I thought I had become. I am alone and uncertain, stripped of my identity. Square one. It's time to set out to find me again.

What I don't understand is why I feel this way. Why should one failed conversation mean that this collection of personality traits and habits and interests I've carefully cultivated is irrelevant? How can one insignificant moment shatter my reality so thoroughly? Why should I doubt myself and my progress over the years? I was finally sure. Do I question my confidence, or do I scrap it and start all over?

I'm really glad that tomorrow is Sunday. I always seem to feel better, securely anchored after a good church session. I'm grateful that I always have something to fall back on, somewhere to start afresh when I need to.

I used to feel that looking for synonyms in a thesaurus was like lying, that my writing wasn't honest if I had to consult one to find an appropriate word. I've come to realize, however, that the thesaurus is an opportunity for growth. I use words that feel good, words with which I can really connect and relate. The thesaurus enables me to speak my mind, maybe a little more eloquently than I otherwise would have been able to.

"Soul n. 1. [Essential nature] spiritual being, heart, substance, individuality, disposition, cause, personality, force, essence, genius, principle, ego, psyche, life. 2. [the more lofty human qualities] courage, love, honor, duty, idealism, art, poetry, sense of beauty 3. [a person] human being, person, being."

"Hope n. 1. [reliance on future] faith, expectation, confidence."

"Experience v. undergo, feel, live through; see ENDURE."

~~~

Recorded 6/26/10

Bum buttery, flit fluttery Dum diddly-ooh, Bum Buttery, bluebird Is singing a tune!

Peach pancakes with spicy brown sugar syrup, gentle spring

sunshine, snacks smuggled into movie theater. Today was the best day this week. I finished cleaning my room (a feat,

I assure you, that would have made Hercules cry like a little girl). Trinkets and memories and clothes in the garbage- 3 days of deconstructing my world and tearing little pieces out,

discarding the inessential. And now I can breathe. I shut my closet doors against aliens and monsters. Cobwebs (physical and figurative) have been cleared away. My thoughts have room to go skipping about. I fit comfortably back into my life.

So many things happened to me last week. A dinner party, poorly planned (and appropriately attended), yet lovingly prepared for my high school friends. We talked, the conversation fragile as our crystal plates and goblets. Time changes things. Time changed me. I felt the space between us, miles of life, years.

I washed the last dish today. I hid it in a cupboard behind some other, less ornate serving trays. I don't know when (or whether) I'll need it again.

The day after the party was Therapy Thursday, also known as the day I used Lou's kidney stones as an excuse to avoid confronting my emotions. I sent Jack an email ten minutes before my missed appointment. Coward. I fake solace in the fact that he hasn't responded- if he doesn't care enough about me to see if I'm alright, then he doesn't care about helping me fix my problems. That sort of reasoning lead to a second session skipped. Coward. Coward, coward, coward.

While I didn't go to therapy, I did take a trip to Saint George with my ward. A great many things about one's personality can be revealed on the face of an immovable mountain.

We hiked Angels Landing, a notoriously difficult climb in Zion National Park, responsible for several deaths.

(photo courtesy goldengatephoto.com)

By the second mile, I was sure they'd add my name to the Wikipedia article. Somehow, I survived. I didn't even get sunburned.

I think I have a secret fear of heigh

ts. I've always told myself otherwise, as though that could make it go away. There's something about my family- we suffer in silence (we don't use our problems to get out of things, we don't talk about our fears, we convince ourselves everything is okay, etc.). Somewhere along the way I came to associate maturity with fearlessness, and so began to deny my phobias. I think I will have to admit, however, that I kept envisioning my dramatic plunge from the 1500-foot-high ledge and the horrifically abrupt end to that fall. Pretty sure that qualifies as a fear of heights.

I'm learning to accept myself. I may be afraid of falling, but that hasn't stopped me from dragging myself up the mountain by chain. I did it, after all. I wasn't even that far behind the group on the way back down. I think it's okay to be a little freaked out sometimes, so long as I don't let these things take over.

That night (Friday, in case you're still keeping track) I attended a wedding reception for my mom's best friend's youngest daughter.

I missed her so much, maybe more than I have yet this year. It was odd to be saturated in loneliness, to be so full of an emptiness, especially surrounded by all those people. It wasn't so much that she wasn't there that day as it was that she won't be there when it's my turn. There is now a finite supply of letters, of handwriting samples; of pictures of the two of us; of memories and experiences; of hugs; of inside jokes. Those few moments at the reception illuminated my future, and made my mother's absence more real to me than it has been in the year and a half since her death.

I haven't done much since I got home, except make a few spectacular meals and dejunk my life. while I was going through the stuff in my bucket, I had a "The Letter That Never Came" moment. I found a postcard from my mom. Inscribed on it is a hope that I will get married in the temple, an expression of gratitude for caring for my dad while my mom is away, and and a little shot of encouragement by way of "I'm proud of you." She couldn't have planned it better- I must have received that postcard when I was 8 and my mom was visiting friends in Salt Lake for a week. I should frame it. Put it next to her picture on my dresser.

Lou got me out of the house today, and not a moment too soon. We wasted a trip to Salt Lake (Sam Weller closes at 6. Who knew?), then puttered around Provo for two hours. Sherlock Holmes is funny, but awkward people make it just a tad hard to watch.

I love the way the cottonwood tufts dance on the air, then when they tire, collect in the grass and in the corners of the porch.

We have purple tulips in the front yard, hovering on the verge of wilt. I think I'll take them to my mom's headstone tomorrow. It's a lovely, lovely spring (I'm not ashamed to admit that I just started A Series of Unfortunate Events for the second time in a row. Jude Law is S U P E R attractive, even in voice over and silhouette, and it's a great catharsis movie).

~~~

Recorded 5/20/10

When It's Quiet in the Kitchen, My Mind Is Abuzz

Somewhere in the middle of my internet perusings, I realized I was home alone. I looked around, slowly taking in the scenes- vignettes of a temporarily abandoned life. Tape dispenser and sheet music, half-empty mug of milk; counter full of crepes and dishes; backpack, contents spilling out on the floor. They wait, perfectly still, silently anticipating the moment when life and object occupy time and space together. I felt out of place. Then loneliness occurred to me, matter-of-fact. Another vignette. I could sit, statuesque, patient. On hold. Solitary. Waiting for life to come my way.

I bothered Lou until she couldn't handle it. Minor panic attack. Unfocused, scattered thoughts then, suddenly, shallow breath, tunnel vision. No. Not now. I won't give in to my anxiety. And it was gone.

I know who I am. I know what I like to wear, what kind of music I like, my favorite color, what I can cook best, how to talk to people in sticky situations. I know what makes me happy. I have religion in my life. Things are about as stable as one can expect for a twenty-one-year-old college sophomore. But in these moments of absolute stillness, of being thoroughly aware of my situation, I feel lost inside myself. Disconnected. Isolated even from my best friends, from my own mind.

Popcorn- friendship food. It's hard to eat a whole bag alone, so this one took pity on me and left half of the kernels unpopped. Dysphoria, it transpires, isn't allergic to popcorn. It won't die easily.

There's something wrong. It might be me, or it might be my friends, or it might be me. I can't shake this feeling. I've changed. Last summer was bliss. Single, happy, doing everything right: church, school, travel, family. Scripture study- real study- every morning. Beauty in everything I saw. This year is the polar opposite. Nothing has changed except me. I can't feel what I used to. Not the same way. This is what happened: my emotions fancy themselves identical twins, and they've decided to try a swap. Anger for love, sorrow for ecstasy. Very funny, guys.

Maybe it's more like my chest is a blender, and the incessant churning is actually an emotional smoothie in the works.

I hate not being in control of myself.

I chose happiness, which responded with indifference.

My fingers are numb. Vignette: chilled green water, expectant paint brushes, hopeful paper plate, unfulfilled acrylic bottles, yellow towel. Jim Dale prattles on, unaware that I am barely listening.

Lost inside myself- life lives itself. I am a spectator. I watch it go by, watch its confidence (I am so unsure).

Look, I don't know what I'm saying anymore.

~~~

Recorded 3/27/10