A Bushel and a Peck

Better not to get too close. I seem to have a talent for being "normal" or lovable enough most of the time. But sometimes I get quiet, I get introspective, I get nervous, I get very focused on myself. I get weird, I guess. Apparently, it scares people. Either that, or I behave differently enough or say things differently enough that I do something offensive without even realizing it. People start acting standoffish and I know I've done it again. I've weirded people away. In those moments, I usually do one of two things. I get anxious and try to figure out how to "fix" it. I can't lose another person. I must have done something wrong and I need to make it right or I'll be a terrible person forever. Not to mention alone. Of course, those are very selfish, codependent fears. But some part of me is even more terrified to consider how my actions have hurt someone else. I don't know if I could live with knowing what I've done. Even if it'...

It's quiet. Except for the dog snuffling quietly nearby, And the occasional car cruising in the distance, And quiet laughter and low murmurs from the neighbors. It's dark. Except for the soft porch lights of nearby houses, And the faint glow of the night sky, And the stars twinkling through the rippling clouds. The cool breeze dances over my body. Every inch of exposed skin tingles slightly. Tiny hairs move in a gentle waltz. My mind stirs. I smell earth, trees, The subtle perfume of spring. New life and new potential. My heart smiles. I feel myself connect To the universe. I am alive. My soul awakens. Here, On the ground, In the dark, Surrounded by trees And the sweet smell of life, I find God. I am home.

Learning to detach from everything but God and myself is an interesting process. I'm still not very good at it. I think a lot of people hear the word "detach" and assume a negative connotation - like I'm learning how to not care about anything. And to a degree, that's true. I'm learning how to stop basing my happiness in everything but myself and God. Yes, my happiness will still be somewhat tied to the people and events in my life, but it won't be fully dependent on those things. I'm learning how to be happy, no matter where I am, what is happening, or who is in my life. Codependent Me still clings to old habits, old ways of thinking, old behaviors. There is a sense of comfort and security there. But Strong Me knows that something is missing. I feel empty when I cling to those things now. I know something is missing. I know it, in my soul, because I have tasted the experience of detaching from everything and attaching only to God and myself....

I sit in the car. It smells like rain. And spring. The darkness is comforting, like my favorite childhood blanket. Hiding me from the world. Holding me softly, quietly. Memories flash through my heart. Not my mind; they're not solid enough to be thoughts. And yet, feeling-memories seem to be more real than thought-memories. They seem to be part of the very fabric of my soul. The stars wink at me, peeking out between the clouds. I smile, pleasantly startled by the realization that these are the same stars I've looked up at my whole life. They haven't changed. I have. I've changed so much. But the feeling-memories remind me of who I've been at each stage of my life. Each time I've looked at the stars, smelled the rain, smiled into the darkness, my heart has recorded a feeling-memory. The memories connect my present self to all my past selves, thousands of colorful threads tying me together into a beautiful whole. Letting those memories flow through my ...

**This post was written in the middle of a depressive episode. I was really struggling and it helped to write it out. It's somewhat painful for me to read now but it is part of my process and I want to record it. I want to remember. I want to learn from it.** Knock Knock Knock Please go away. My heart and mind are fragile today. The pounding begins. Please? The door is splintering. To the corner it is. But there is no hiding. Just praying as my mind continues to numb itself. The cutest little monsters you've ever seen come bursting into the room. They swarm me, crying, screaming, tearing off every last bit of emotional flesh they can find. They are so hungry. Wait. Stop, please. My pained cries become barely audible moans. People say I should enjoy these moments. But I don't. I'm already naked, half of my flesh gone, given to the various masters I hoped would keep me safe. And yet I'm alone. Alone with the monsters I try my best to love. But ...

Do you ever have dreams where you know what you want to do, what you should be able to do, and yet you just can't seem to make your mouth move or your legs cooperate? You know that if you could just move or open your mouth or do just the right thing, you could save it all. Some part of you senses that you SHOULD be able to do this. But you can't. Then there's real life. You watch something fall apart and think, "If I could just open my mouth or say the right thing or move my feet in the right direction, maybe this disaster wouldn't happen. Maybe I can still save it." But there's only so much one person, one piece of the puzzle can do. And sometimes you know that trying to save it will most likely just make things worse. So you stand there, watching things collapse, feeling just as paralyzed as your dream self, wishing you could fix it all. Sensing that you SHOULD be able to. Knowing that you can't.

It's a cycle. I know this. I know it. But I keep hoping I've "figured it out" enough that it won't hit me as hard next time. That it'll slowly get better. And in a way, that is happening. I'm learning how to manage it in healthier ways. But the core feelings and experiences are the same. I can't focus. I don't want to. I want to sleep because I feel like I can't intellectually or emotionally do much more than that. It almost feels like there's a big hole in my brain or a haze over the whole of it - my cognitive abilities are impaired. I literally can't function as well as I normally do. And there doesn't seem to be any obvious reason for it. It just happens. I feel numb. It takes a lot of energy to make myself feel things the way I normally would. I have to dig deep to find real sadness, anger, joy, love, and more. On the surface, things just feel...blah. I don't care. I can sense the true emotions sleeping under the surfa...

As a human being, I have a natural instinct to avoid pain. As a child, I learned (both consciously and subconsciously) that this instinct was not only helpful to survival, but also an indication of the morality of a particular course of action. If something hurt, it must be bad or wrong. This conviction was difficult to reconcile with the fact that I would experience discomfort while attempting to complete a task that I "knew" to be good or worth my time. Intellectually, I knew that I wasn't doing something bad, but my subconscious mind has automatically categorized all  discomfort as a sign that something is horribly wrong. This dissonance obviously created more emotional discomfort. Intellectually, I would shame myself for being inexplicably uncomfortable with something " "knew" to be good for me. I didn't understand the source of the discomfort, but I couldn't make it stop. My anxiety would build until I just couldn't handle it, and I would...

Here's a question for you. Are you listening? How are you supposed to let go of someone who has seen your soul and loved you for it? Someone who has allowed you the privilege of seeing and loving their soul? This is heartbreak. Or maybe a better word would be soulbreak. When my soul connects with someone else's and that connection is broken, a piece of my soul is fractured in the process. I'll heal, but the scar will always be there: a beautiful and painful reminder of a broken link to another human soul. Soulbreak.

So many thoughts. So many feelings. Racing, spinning, begging for me to put them on a page and give them a quiet, predictable home. I can't get them all down. I try, but there are always more. I feel alive, but sometimes living feels like a little too much. Sometimes I want to go back to being numb. Numbness is calm, quiet, predictable. Safe. Feeling, thinking, stretching. They're wonderful. I don't want them to stop - not permanently. But they also hurt. They're uncomfortable. They feel scary sometimes. This is hard. Life in color is, all at once, harder and easier than I expected it to be. More painful and more rewarding than I realized. Different than I'd planned. I love it, but sometimes I hate it. Living in full color means being able to accept and appreciate extremes, opposites, contradictions, all the gray areas in between. My soul knows how to do this. My heart and mind still freak out regularly. But I'll get there. Tonight, my soul longs to ...

9 years ago today I had my first kiss. It was awkward (read: I was awkward), and I'm not sure how much a tiny peck on the lips actually counts, but it was still a big moment for me. I'd promised myself I wouldn't kiss someone till I could say that I loved him. I was 18 and I was in love for the first time. A year later on this day, I went through the temple for myself (it's a Mormon thing). I still say that was one of the best days of my life. The temple is incredibly important to me. It feels like home. So March 12th has been a big day for me. In 2008 I knew I loved a man for the first time. In 2009, I learned what heaven on earth really feels like. This year, I find myself "alone" - divorced from that first love, missing another that I can never have, waiting on a third that may or may not actually come. But I don't feel lonely. My relationships with God and myself are better than ever. I have opened myself up to the universe and to others in a...

A while back, I wrote a post about what love isn't. I've been learning more about love and what it should actually look like. I know I have a long way to go still, but I'm getting a much better perspective on it. And I see now that it starts with love for myself. I used to think love was about losing myself in the will of another person. It's not. Love is about being my own strong, capable, intelligent person and choosing to metaphorically take someone else's hand so we can walk our paths together, for however long we're on the same path. Love means loving myself enough to be willing to follow the path that's right for me, even if I walk it alone sometimes. Love also means being willing to say goodbye to those whose paths diverge from mine - not because they're unworthy of me or I'm unworthy of them, but simply because we are heading in different directions. I can let go with love and wish them well. I used to think that love meant hating myself ...

Dear Everyone, I'm not "yours." I never will be. I belong to me. I belong to God. That's it. I don't belong to anyone else. I am fully my own and fully God's. You want to be part of my life? It'll be as my friend, my equal, a partner. I won't give myself away again. I won't lose myself in other people again. This I know. This I promise myself. This I promise you. This I promise God. Love, Me

I've always hated feeling like I was emotionally "needed" by someone else. Growing up, I had some interesting dynamics with important people in my life that either formed or exacerbated my hatred of being needed. But, on some level, I also believed that loving someone meant needing them and letting them need you. I guess you could say I had a love-hate relationship with the concept of love. Because love means mutual needing...right? No. That's not love. If you need me, emotionally, your "love" for me is tainted. In your mind, I exist, on some level, to fill a void. If you need me, it's because part of you is empty and you don't want to fix it - you want me to. But the truth is, I can't. On some level, I thought that being needy meant that I was letting people love me, that love meant letting people swoop in and take care of me. So they could fill their own voids through rescuing me. I thought that letting myself be needy meant that I was al...

I'm learning that Shame is the most consistently present "monster" in my head. She has the loudest voice. She has the sharpest stick. She wins the day most of the time. I've fed her more than I've fed most of my other "monsters." Today, after I've tried to starve her for weeks, she is doing her darnedest to tear me to pieces. It's almost physically painful. My chest and my stomach feel like they're trying to cave in on themselves. Shame is yelling fiercely and slashing at as many tender places as she can. "Why would you say that? You assumed that was about YOU? You're an idiot! They're going to hate you now. You're such a failure and it's only getting worse. You don't deserve anyone's love. Don't even think about trying to love anyone else because you don't deserve love in return. How dare you even consider that? Stay small, shut up, sit down, hide or scare everyone away. You know what? It mi...