Plums and things

Can I tell you a secret?
Even if I haven't decided what that secret is yet?

We all have secrets and I tend to carry around more from other people than I ever do my own. In fact, mine tend to be rather silly things and I like it that way even if it can be a little embarrassing. So here it is:

I as a social introvert have forgotten how to be by myself. Somehow in the struggling to stay in community while learning how to date while trying to get all of my homework done while no one is around...I just forgot. I leap past solitude to sheer loneliness even though I have a thousand enjoyable activities that I would prefer to do alone. I go looking for companions and either lay aside what I wanted to do or else find frustration in the fact that no one is available.

This puzzles me.

I have never been the kind of introvert who would do well living in the woods alone in a cabin for months on end, though there was once a romanticized version of myself that could have. I have always enjoyed the company of just a few very close friends above either groups or solitude, but I have also always known that I needed it all. I do not know when I began leaving solitude out....real solitude. Not read Grudem in the bath  before class solitude. Not 30 minutes to quickly process my life before I leave or someone comes or whatever else. Not cleaning your room solitude (though it may include that).

So I went on an adventure to teach myself, to reacquaint myself with my own company. And I took these photos sometime between 4:30am and 7:30am:

I found some plums.

I took a 1990's style self portrait. It's blurry because it's artistic to be out of focus...or at least it was in the 90's.

 

I traipsed through vineyards and farms. I got my car good and muddy. I watched the sun rise even though it was over cast and all you could see was the heat behind the clouds trying to burn a hole through the blankets to let the light in. It was beautiful in its own way. 

...and then I went back to bed. 

Skin to marrow to unexplored soul.

How do I explain this?

Fall makes me... restless. In a good way.

It makes me seek changes I have long been putting off. But fall in the city feels off beat. Fashion changes first. Then Halloween paraphernalia comes out. Then change grabs a few leaves or the air temperature. It feels funny. And I ... get stuck. Like a lizard trying to shed old skin, but not allowed out.

I'm not sure if that was a helpful metaphor.

But I am itchy. Skin to marrow to unexplored soul. There is no salve I know for this. Only the need to lie still out somewhere where I can count the space between passing cars in minutes, in breaths taken and released.

Yes that is what I need... a forest full of release.

There is nothing which *mandates* that my most itchy days be lonely days. It is just... that I become picky about my company. And the company which I would choose is typically unavailable on these days. Or they do not understand the importance of them. Either one. Justified or unjustified. I am at a point in my life where I do not wait for people because the longer I wait for people who are very likely going to misunderstand... the itchier I get. I can come very near to manic if I wait too long.

I do not know why.

There is pressure pushing me from an unknown direction. It is not meant to be lonely or to make me antisocial... It just is and it does.

I would bring people if they would come, but schedules are treacherous things. You need to be good at them, but not too good. Or else the itchy days will get you and gnaw on you until you blow off the really important things. In view of the week I have planned, I should not go. I have homework and preparation to do. In view of the week I have planned, it has to be today.

So South it is. Lunch is packed. Camera is charged. Notebooks still have space. Books are yet unread.

Grab the keys. It's time to go.

life and living

My thoughts are sticky mess. I keep trying to take one out to examine it, but it will not leave its kin. A lot of life has happened in the last few days. And yet, it is just life. Nothing I am not used to. I have been practicing living for awhile now. Somehow, however, I round a corner and everything feels foreign again. Like the laws of physics have changed and gravity has a different tug and the science of living is not what it once was. None of my equipment and formulas and expectations are relevant anymore. Or maybe the laws of metaphysics.

But there's hope. I do not know what I am hoping for, but I think that it is enough to know that hope is alive. It is not certain or else it would be fact and well past hope. I am through the meat of my mechanic's certification, which is a milestone I have long been looking at with uncertainty. I know I am ready for something new. I do not do well with the formulaic life anyhow. A life I could transcribe from a textbook would never be big enough, rich enough, or otherwise worthwhile. So here we go. Onward.

9 of 10

I learned how to build home on the topography of my father’s emotions between wandering the woods and chocolate chip cookie making. He was a man still working through the rubble of his own upbringing and so he brought me up in the crowded space between his own tears. I learned to read him the way sailor’s read the stars, the clouds, and the sea. I learned to sail him like he was the only ocean I could ever love. I tried to learn the words that could bring us both home.

He taught me everything I know about emotions and feeling. “Don’t bottle them up and stuff them in.” he’d say, “They’ll always find you because they are not the sort of things that fade unless you face them.” So while he told me not to keep them in, I resolved to be better than that. I chose, instead, to keep them always out.

It took years for me to figure out  that short cuts are just longer ways to the same place for those who want to put off confrontation until it hits you from behind, knocks the wind out of you, and demands your silent attention. It may be the shortest distance between two places; but there are no places or paths for lessons like love, forgiveness, and getting over yourself. Those are long roads you have to walk yourself. Do not skip a step or you may miss it altogether.

It took me even longer to realize that sometimes the act of sorrow is all you have to give. There are no wrong ways to feel, just wrong ways to cope with the feeling. Still I forget and so I say again, there are no wrong ways to feel.

I have now been brought up as far as anyone else can bring me. I do not always feel the things I know. And I do not always understand the things I feel. And yet, the longer I spend trying to feel truth and questioning the why’s and the how’s of feeling, the more I stand by that statement. There are no wrong ways to feel... but my emotions are often malnourished, ignorant, and a little disconnected.

The struggle is to bring all of me into agreement. The struggle is to learn my own coastlines, correct my compass, and learn to sail a new sea. The struggle is to connect and educate all of my emotions in the hope that the daughter I do not yet know if I will have will never have to try so hard to ride my waves, weather my storms, and bring me home.

butter and honey...on rice cakes

For two weeks now I have been gluten free. It's a test run, you see, to find out if I am secretly allergic. Since wandering down this road and finding that there is more truth along it than I would like, I have been told by several people that I am handling this way better than they ever would. Truth is, I am not handing it better because, well, I'm not handling it. I'm terrified. I hate restrictions to my freedom and I can remember specific instances in my life where I thanked God in pride that I had no food allergies and could eat what I want. And now, that is threatened.

See what I did there?

I left that thought at just 'threatened'. It still has not penetrated as actual fact that gluten really is the cause of at least half my head and back pain. I still act as if this is a temporary change. I am fasting, dieting, playing an endurance game. I am not eating wheat because I do not want to. I am so deep in denial, it is all I can see.

Food is a love language. It brings people together and provides commonality and proof of humanity on a basic level. And it is best left uncomplicated. It is a unique meeting place between need and luxury.

I am not ready for it to be complicated. And I am not ready to relinquish that freedom. Truth be told, I never would be given more days or years. But time is not my privilege and I am here. Already. Now. My own body against me in this. I am not fool enough to rage against anyone else. No one and nothing has done this... except I guess God... and I wont turn my anger or my panic or whatever emotional beast this is on Him. He is the only one I could accept this from and I hate that He knows that. But I know that He will be there when I am done and spent.

I am not sure why I am posting this...I like to leave this space for art and adventures and interesting people... I suppose this is the start of some kind of adventure. Here we go.