is there such thing as happy-sadness?

note before reading: I’m venturing to blog more this year, but I will do so with terrible spelling and grammar issues for the fact that my life is papers, and for this I just don’t want to care nor worry about bad english form. because for this…it is not important to me.

I moved my school work section off my bed and to my desk this week. This in of itself is quite a feat and often not a change I make until well into the last week before my papers are due. But I guess with my Senior Seminar paper kind of holding my graduation in its hand and being due far before finals, I have made this grand semester move at the start of the year. A good sign or a bad sign I have yet to decide. The depression, which usually settles in for permanent residence about a month and a half into school, has also brought itself around early. I’m almost one hundred percent sure that this change has no correlation with the move from bed to desk. Though I can’t help but wish it did. That is easily solved by moving a few books to my bedside and my computer onto a pillow.
Trapped by snow and a weekend I have poured myself into my homework. You know reading one more depressing classic novel and doing pounds of research. In every break I take, where I am able to stand about and view the beauty of God’s creation, I have found I do so with the most impossible happy sadness. Maybe this is better described as content sadness. I look out my window (which I have completely uncovered–yet another complete abnormality, of which rarely happens til spring rains fall) and watch the huge snow flake fall on my undisturbed backyard. I even spent 15 minutes just watching my neighbors dog frolic through the snow. Sometimes I’ve caught myself opening the window to here the snow fall (yes I contend it has a sound, just as it has this distinct smell.) Anyway I digress…when I watch these flake float back and forth I was completely sad, but not heavy. I don’t know, maybe this year as I watch the snow fall God is echoing back my sadness for me. I can’t seem to expedite the blues away, but I feel a whole lot less alone when I watch that snow fall. Intriguingly it’s the silence and the ability to stand alone and hear snow fall which causes me to not feel alone. Yes, I’m not quite sure what that means–or says about me for that matter.
I don’t for a second doubt my choices in the last month and few days change…but it’s a weird sensation of falling back into a routine, that should seem so familiar, but everything about it screams that it’s completely inexperienced before. Maybe it’s the way everything is occurring earlier or faster. Maybe it’s the fact that in 112 days I will finally be done with this bothersome last four years. A degree in hand to please the masses and a free ticket to follow my dreams. But as I clutch my hot cup of Mint tea, I am assaulted by two different ideas running in a delicate dance. First I look at this cup and thing of my excitement of purchasing it last year, and I can be taken back to my kitchen of last year and the memories there. I place it down on the small plate of which I have inherited from my Grandma Bowen. I quickly think, tomorrow is dreaded Sunday, a day of which I still can’t face without a sad memory that never again will I sit at her table and eat her amazing cooking. Familiar sadness sinks deep into my core and nestles close to the already consistent ache. But as these memories assail me I am also bending under the weight of yet another, even stranger phenomena. That this moment for some reason has great meaning. I have been hit by this feeling over and over and over again the last week. I do something so insignificant and I feel the weight of this has some deep meaning or that it should.
For example, I dropped off my graduation packet earlier this week. Amidst the chaos of starting classes plus the assault of inches of snow I gladly turned in the correct papers to get me out of here. This should be a momentous event I remember thinking, but I felt nothing. I could have cared less. But later that day when I sat down in the Hive to grab a quick snack I felt the weight of it being a significant moment. I stared around the room, very few faces were familiar. I ate a good ole chicken patty sandwich and I continued to feel a deep pressure of meaning I couldn’t quite grasp. This week has very much been categorized in my head as a very alone one. I moved to classes quietly by myself, I sat through classes fairly quietly by myself. I spent hours alone doing my shopping tasks, school preparations, my homework–all alone. I sat in chapel repeatedly by myself surrounded by hundreds. But most of this time, I never once felt the weight of loneliness, instead I felt as if God was saying—see this is what I’m showing you. Listen close. Except, I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to be hearing…I can’t help but sit alone with my thoughts and I know this is exactly where I should be, where I needed to be this weekend. And that I think is what scares me the most. The fact that I feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be, the fact that things are definitely being directed at me, but yet I can’t quite figure out what all of this means. So I take another sip of my tea, I spend a few more minutes watching the snow fall, and then I wrap myself back up in my grandma’s quilt, let the hurt settle back into its home and go back to my massive amounts of reading.

A New Year…

The New Year has commenced. “Two thousand and ten” or “twenty ten” or “Oh Ten“. I stood with friends out on the pavement of the main street of small, eccentric Yellowsprings as we discussed which was the proper name for this new decade. A decent sized crowd, who had all come out to watch a makeshift disco ball with Christmas lights on it drop, drunkenly stumbled around me. Sombreros, cat ears, a group of four in all white with a single with a 2-0-1-0 sketched out across their chests. I’ve been massively ill lately, and within minutes I was ready to leave the inebriated crowd to sit alone with my thoughts. Everyone is intoxicated happy around me, but as I stand there, I just can’t seem to get into it (and no it wasn’t the absence of alcohol in my body.) Hurrah, we’ve made it another year, but I couldn’t help wondering why we find this day so much more pivotal than every day of our lives? Is it because we, every human on earth (well at least by time zones) share one pivotal minute in time? I read a tweet on twitter that simply stated, “wow so many people just made out at the exact same moment”. It’s like everyone’s birthday all at once–”whew I made it another year! We all made it another year”. But really, do we measure our lives in years? As we stumbled into 2010, we had the rare opportunity of not only looking back on the year but the decade. Because with every year, we must look back on what has occurred. As if most of us look back on the day and say “hmmm this is what occurred in the past 24 hours” unless of course those past 24 were minutes, seconds, hours from hell. The day where you sit at the end laying in your bed say…what just happened?!? As the night continued, I continued to have even darker and darker emotions. I watched the people around me, I read facebook statuses and tweets and all I could feel was a deep sadness.

It is some social comment when everyone must move into a “fresh start of a new year” by consuming black out amounts of alcohol and have the perfect person at hand to kiss.

Maybe I’m a Debby downer, but I can’t help but thinking how we spend billions on a New Years Eve celebration, so much money for a change in one simple minute. Meanwhile the majority of the world has no clean water, no shelter, humans are being trafficked, and we are finding more holidays to justify drinking ourselves under the table. Is this a bitterness that is in me? I’m not sure. Yes I would have loved to been with my family last night. I would have loved to be next to Nikki as I have been every New Years Eve before. And yes, I craved being able to stand next to my boyfriend and watch a new year unfold. But really, how different is it to watch a new year unfold on January first, as it will be on July 1st when Mike gets off tour? I mean a year can be Jan 1st to Jan 1st or June 13th to June 13th…365 is still 365 no matter what day of the week you start counting on. When did we stop living day to day and begin living year to year. Decade to decade. Maybe I’m just missing the memo?

Either way I woke up this morning with this sinking realization that when we live year to year we fail the day to day. New Years Day isn’t one where new years resolutions start, hell I’m pretty sure a large chunk of the nation woke up with blinding hangovers, still drunk, and/or not remembering what last night entailed. I mean sure I have a things I would like to accomplish as I look forward, I’d love to get on a regular gym schedule, I want to read through the whole bible, I want to finish this semester. But that’s not accomplished by looking forward to the whole year, that’s looking forward to each new day as it unfolds. How arrogant we are that we believe we can plan for this year, for this next decade, when tomorrow we could be dead. It’s the day to day.

Congrats, I think. Last night we thoroughly celebrated. Sadly, I feel like we are DESPERATELY missing it. Drinking to a gold calf and turning down getting drunk on the Spirit.

a moment of rest threw me for a loop

Yesterday I stood in my kitchen unable to see past my backyard through the downpour. The forest of which I live in all but disappeared. I’d forgotten the pleasure my heart finds from the simplistic beauty of a good rain. In torrential downpour, in the chaotic-ness of the storm is where I find my greatest sense of calm. It was good for my broken heart. Yes that’s right, I just openly admitted to possessing a broken heart. What is eating at me you may ask?
Regret.
Yes that very, very well known feeling of regret. The sadness of it all, the clincher for me, is how far of a delay of which it has come upon me. Kimmie Bowen–age 21: finally regretful. In high school I made many, many, many poor decisions…and no my regret does not stem from those choices. See I just spent five weeks of my life watching God uses that for his glory. I have slowly over the year been learning that God will take the earthly filth that I daily cloth myself in and still he will turn it into a beautiful picture of his glory. My regret was that it has taken me this long to realize what finding satisfaction in Him is like. My heart is a mess…I’ve tasted the richness of following him; I’ve tasted the richness of him lavishing his love on me for just trying to faithfully show his love to broken kids. My regret…all the wasted moments, the past years of waste searching in other directions or hiding away. I came home to a mostly empty house, a huge question mark as to my plans for the fall, nothing on my agenda and my soul can not find peace.

How do we live if our every moment isn’t spent serving him?

I don’t mean run yourself ragged down into non-function-ability. I mean how do you live if it’s not pointedly to serve him? I have faces of the kids I met this year and I feel burdened by all the children I will never meet who are out there. So starving for fulfillment and yet I’ve been huddled in dissatisfying things. At the peak of my frustrations at camp I still was surrounded with the greatest satisfaction from God…the little voice screaming “THIS IS WHY!” A voice I can not turn off…after the cabins have been cleaned, the barn doors have been pulled down, after I turned out of that rock driveway and drove miles down the turnpike. And in the quiet of this house, with the on and off again patter of rain against the roof I am being overtaken by the beauty of the last five weeks and the regret of the last 3 years. I have sought out survival in my own way. 2 classes away from a degree that I have no idea how to use and have grown quiet bitter towards, 3 years into a college experience that I can only categorize as an epic failure full of missed opportunities, with a heart longing for a degree that would desperately suite my dream ministry but is all but a lost dream. Three years of giving up old bad habits to develop new bad habits and all the time walking in a selfish world. Not to say that all at Cedarville has been hopeless, more to say that all that was hopeful I seemed to push away, squander, or ruin.

The static of life rains down on me. I miss my campers. I miss all the failed opportunities. I am scared to make the wrong next step…I don’t want to fall back into my old trends. I look forward into the huge question mark of the fall and I stumble around…I can not imagine living without serving, but it feels like the world does not run on that motive. I have too many hard questions, too many future decisions to be coming up with so little answers. After an experience like the last year, especially the last few weeks, I am more sure of my destination and more unsure of the path.

little cracked pot full of holes…

2 am. The fan blows a spiraled breeze onto my hot face. I contemplate turning the fan up, but that would require movement–the movement of fingers to type is enough already. My soul aches far too much for me to handle anything more. I am breaking under the pressure. I seek out that new Jason Mraz song on you tube. I don’t like him, but it reminds me of early days with Janet, so I hoard this song like a squirrel chasing after nuts for winter. I can close my eyes and see her. Beautiful dress–first time I saw her. Guitar hero–different day even stronger ache as these two memories have blended together in my mind. I fight it, I separate them, I remember details, and I brokenly wish she was here to share life with. I tell myself don’t think about it, two seconds later I chase down Jason Mraz or Tyrone Wells and tell myself to feel it all. Maybe you can feel it all and it’ll fade. Maybe if I let it sit long enough, out in the open hurting and burning, I’ll be able to move on with more ease. I think I suck at lying to myself.

3 states. Amazing that distance does nothing to waylay the burn of ones you deeply care about hurting you. Words that spilled out of my mouth meant nothing. An essay of a letter soaked in vulnerability shot to hell by an obsession with assumption. We’re all guilty parties here. I keep telling myself, “Welcome to earth darling, welcome to the fallen state we’re sitting in…”. But how do you walk away from friends, on the aftershock of suddenly unwillingly losing a friend. You’ve lost one…why would you walk away from more. I trust God has got it all worked out. I trust the signs he’s been throwing at me for a long while. But I’m still working with the emotions inside of me. It doesn’t always feel good following his path–but the reward is beyond worth it. I’m tired of longing for people and things no longer here and so I pursue leaving more behind to miss?!? I remind myself that we don’t have to understand, we just follow, follow, follow. Easier written than obeyed.

I long to push so much of my life aside. I so desperately want to close so many doors and rip many of the closed ones open. I want this all to happen and to not have any emotional consequence. I’m rushing through life, searching for everything that is “good”. I’m pretty sure I’m missing the point of right now, in this moment. I want to get out of my intense learning stage and move onto much learning, but with action. I don’t have any action, movement, motion. I daily remind myself that those doors are closed and locked for a reason. I know God has placed fortresses around some of those doors to keep me away. It’s not my time yet, but I desperately want it to be. I have so much more soul fixing to happen before I’m capable of the actions I want to make. (Not to say you can’t have action or motion in brokenness…you totally can. I just know that me particularly…I’m only capable of stirring in the fixin’ stage. Partly out of stubbornness, but mostly out of rushing. I swear I get it…then I prove that I‘m so far behind it.)

I know you keep breaking, God continues til your dying day to break you down and mold you back up. But I want to be done this stage where all I do is break and watch how much more I can take without hitting the end. I want to be moving. I want to be overseas holding hurting children. Nothing too big, nothing requiring an education. Right now I just want to sit there, maybe bring them some crayons and paper, and hold them. I want to be some example of love to them…if only for a moment…I want to show them there is still hope and a reason to smile. I don’t want to say anything profound to them, I don’t feel the need to impress them, and I don’t have this ideal of what I should look/act/sound like with them. I just want to hold them and love on them. But God keeps telling me no. Not yet. Just wait. And instead I sit in a classroom learning about literature and how to write academic papers over and over and over again. I’ll never use it. Maybe I’ll tell the little girl I’m holding the storyline in a book I have read. I don’t get it, but he’s put me here. He keeps making me return here. He makes it clear to finish this task. And I grumble, like a fool, I call his plan a waste of my time. And I wonder why so many doors are barricaded from my eyes…

It sucks when you know all the work being done right now…
Won’t be visible until way down the line, after everything is said and done.
It sucks being unable to see any progression, growth, change…
Standing in the middle of the storm, never caters to good sight.
At best you keep your eyes on the one Truth
And hold on for the rest of the ride.

I’m so tired of this hurricane called life. Yet I have a strange obsession with natural disasters. I want to be near them. I want to clean up after them. I want to chase down a tornado. I want to run into things far before I’m educated on them. I want to rush through the education; I want to rush through the molding. I’m like a little cracked pot full of holes, begging to be used to serve the water….

I don’t even know me…how can I possibly be ready?

I want the fire I felt after the funeral…I’ve got to keep that alive in order to see and understand my heart. Eyes open and focused. Simplest command and so quickly I fail. See him. See him to see me. I’ve got a rolodex of mantras floating through this thing, if only they’d become more than spoken words and 80% of the time failed realities.

Afterglow {on a semester lived}

Afterglow

I’m sitting on my couch…in New Jersey. And not just for a little two day stop over, but nearly three weeks in the dirty. I have slight feelings of PTSD from the last 6 months. I am sitting in the afterglow of a semester that held extreme sorrow and extreme rejoicing. (Granted I feel like that is the description of life…) But this semester, I believe, is the first one where I’ve sat in the hurricane of these two extremes colliding and known I was dealing with it from the palm of my Savior’s hand. I have no way to document the occurrences of this semester except to catalog major events and reactions. Which will most likely occur in backwards order…

A Cedarville by way of New Jersey Wedding:
My brother once told me that he finds great hope in watching his friends marry, watching them represent what life is supposed to be like. I didn’t completely get this until watching Nick’s face as Dorianna walked down that aisle. Being present for the first time they are introduced as Mr. & Mrs. Nicholas Lordi and then walking down the aisle to Norma Jean. Watching two people that I have been blessed to have in my life, dance their first dance as husband and wife and it was perfect. Everything just seems to right itself in those moments. I felt like it was a huge wake-up sign that I’m growing up. Life is moving on, somehow…I have no idea when it happened, I grew up to the point where my friends are getting married and are in each others wedding. It was a crazy feeling. But such hope to close my fall semester with. There’s nothing like a beautiful friend in her wedding dress, the Christ-centered union of two people, and time with amazing friends. Hope. God brings such hope.

The failure of a semester of education:
The last three weeks of school I think I pulled more all-nighters than nights adorned with sleep. I barely ate…I sat in front of this computer and typed, typed, typed, and typed some more. Paper after paper after paper. And in the end, I don’t think it will save me. I’m sitting on the edge of failing three classes and anything that could have gone wrong–did. I have very little expectations of passing these classes despite practically killing myself to complete the work to the best of my ability in the short time I was left with. I keep thinking what could I have done better, I keep running from the “what ifs” because it won’t change anything. At the end, on Thursday when I turned those last two finals in, I had great peace. I have struggled all semester whether this is the major for me, struggled to understand what I am doing in life. More of struggling to watch the passion I have for writing and reading sucked out of me for a major that often I realize really won’t matter in the long run. The way finals end–my grades that is–is totally up to God. I don’t have to make decisions about staying or going, about what direction to take. I tried my best and God still showed me that it is completely up to Him. Like he promises, he has taken my yoke upon him; he is showing me that I don’t have to worry about this anymore. I feel peace. This “perfectionist“, “straight A or cry“, “has to be great at whatever she pursues” is completely okay with the fact that I may fail more classes than I pass this semester. I’m completely okay with letting go of the wheel. Faith and trust. That is what is guiding me.

The conversations you wish to fast forward through:
I have this problem where I don’t stick up for myself. I don’t voice how I feel. I struggle to understand myself and have bought into a lie that my feelings do not matter and I should not bother other people with them. I have taught myself to think that I am “too much” for people to handle emotionally. I have let Satan run havoc in my heart long enough. God has created me as a person who needs to talk through emotions, I need a great amount of time alone with myself to process and then I need to discuss it through. So boxing up and staying quiet is like a silent hell, where I do more harm than help. I’ve learned that sometimes you have to bring up things you don’t want to, sometimes you have to demand something gets discussed, sometimes you’re going to fail at trying to articulate what you wanted, but you have to try. It’s part of growing up, of growing spiritually. You have to learn to communicate, communicate honestly and with words. Vulnerability. It was a word that Jen used in conversation a lot this semester and by the end I realized how true it was. Christianity calls for it. In order to really fellowship, in order to really have deep friendships, there is an aspect of vulnerability that gets paired with “guarding your heart”…what a difficult balance. Realizing that balance between the two needs to be there is half the battle though. Sometimes, even when you know it’s going to cause awkward, painful, unwanted consequences, you have to say what is on your heart. You have to stick up for yourself, you have to express yourself, you have to trust what God is doing inside of you, and you have to open your mouth. It sucks. But God is faithful. If he says get out of the boat and walk–child you better do it. It may have taken me all semester to completely listen, but God is patient. He was still there when I finally decided to faithfully obey. He is here as I try to put my actions where my words are.

I’ll take a double dose of sprained ankles and large fries please:
Oh that I even allot space for this one is shameful. Yes I sprained both ankles. Yes I ended up with contusions on both heels, yes almost every last friend watched me crawl around because I couldn’t walk. And God said: How bout a spoonful of humility? Indeed. I learned that sometimes you can still surprise yourself. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on things you go and do that stupid thing. It was a sucky reminder–but the point was clear. If not yet humbled, man oh man, get yourself in a situation where you are almost helpless and have to completely rely on the grace of others. On the favors of others. It will get you right down there on your knees. (literally happened for me.) Humble, becoming humble–Hopefully a lesson I will not need God to re-teach me anytime soon…

Janet Rose gets to sing and dance before the Lord:
Wow. Where do I start on this lesson? I could talk for hours and hours, surprisingly I haven’t said too much of anything about it to anyone. I can remember the feeling of having my sister calling me with the news. I remember the motorcycle ride towards Yellowsprings, on the road, wind in face & breathing in the scent of the woods and hearing Janet’s laugh in my head. I remember falling apart on my sister by the main intersection of downtown Cedarville. I remember the feeling of peace. Then I remember how reality hit me. Janet was not just any ole friend in my life. She was a Godly woman who reached into my soul and forced me to open up. She demanded to know me, everything about me, and then loved and loved and loved on me. Just now, in the hours after a rush of a semester, in moments where I suddenly have nothing to distract me, I am beginning to truly feel the ache of losing her. I thought that I understood the complexity of feeling desperate sorrow and extreme joy at the same time. But I’m still learning. Everything, weird things, remind me of her. I hear songs, I see pictures in every earthly scene around me, I hear words, I have conversations and I desperately want to tell my dear friend about them. I desperately want to share my life with her. But her life went to completion, she did just what God called her to do, and now she is dancing before the Lord. And I am jealous, I am joyful, I am ecstatic for my beautiful artist. And no I have no idea how these two things blend together. It’s sad for me to say, but at the same time, totally a thing only God could do–Janet taught me more in her death than the load of things she taught me in life. I feel like even today I am still learning things from Janet. You didn’t have to know much about her to see how that could happen, one just had to look around at her funeral or sign onto face book or even look at the top names googled that week to see the immense impact she had in less than 25 years here on earth. Janet was my sister, she was my friend, she was my mentor, she showered me in the light of Christ. God revealed so much to me in the time that I had with Janny. He’s revealing even more in her absence. I miss her encouraging words, her smiles, her hugs, her lisp, but oh I miss our conversations. At this point, I know I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of thoughts and change and growth that Janet’s life and death is doing in my life. What hope! What peace! To know that it is not forever that we are apart. What encouragement to be able to know and watch and love someone who ran the race to completion. It’s scary to think how much Janet impacted me in life, and how much God has revealed to me in her death. It completely devastated my semester academically, it challenged me emotionally, but it made all the difference spiritually. Even in this long paragraph I feel I have only pointed out the tip of the iceberg. God has shown me comfort. He has shown me blessings. He has shown me to live–live pointedly. He has given me a passion, a vision. More importantly he showed me great peace in the face of the storm.

Blessings, blessings. I get by with a little help from my friends:
I am blessed with the friends that I have. This semester I have learned just how much I appreciate every last one of them. I’ve seen how we often forget to tell those people in our lives how much we appreciate them. I’ve had friends who spoke truth in my life, friends who listened to me blubber on, friends who sat in my living room just staring at me, just being there for me when I called. I am truly blessed with friends who care deeply. And I care deeply for all of you. I have a love for you and a desire to be apart of your lives…to watch you grow. I love that you have been and are and hopefully will continue to be apart of mine. God showed me how much we need each other. How much we impact each other. How much of a blessing each friend is.

Blueprints and construction on New Additions to the Familia:
I became an aunt. You want to talk about being forced to recognize that you are growing up. That my friends came in a beautiful little girl named Ava Brooklyn. It’s amazing how much you begin to see the value of life when you’re holding a brand new one that looks like your family. You become filled with this huge excitement that you get a pretty little baby, without the responsibility of feeding it, staying up at night with it, dealing with the screaming and crying and dirty diapers. You get to hold her and love on her and when she gets grumpy and cries you pass her off to mrs. Momma-dukes. It’s great. And weird. And slightly scary.
God also said if knowing a baby was on its way wasn’t enough to prove you’ve entered a new place in life, I shall add a new brother to your clan. And so my other sister got engaged. Foreseen and absolutely exciting, until you realize I’m going to be in a wedding with the girl I quote stupid movie lines too and speak in random accents too just for giggles. But how exciting to see love and commitment move on to more. How cool to see how someone fits so well with a sibling. Hopeful, exciting, new beginnings, new families, new pages. February 7^th I’ll stand in my little cranberry dress and become the last single Bowen female. What a blessing I have. Two Godly sisters, entering into Christ-centered marriages. A picture of following truth. What good advice I shall have if ever I take a stroll down an aisle with a man, a preacher, and a ring at the other end.

(This is not to exclude the blessing in a God centered older brother, mentor, friend. Ryan you know the value you have in my life. Most other people know that too. Any conversation with any type of depth I have…at least one statement is always prefaced with “My brother Ryan says/told me/showed me fill in blank here”)

Highlights with a lack of extreme clarity. But highlights none the less. I sit in the afterglow and sift through. I’m still trying to find the pieces I’ve lost on the way. I’m still trying to get these puzzle pieces to fit. Yet I know they’ll never really fit…not until I’m home–heaven home.

Flickering Fragments of Lost Love

One. My thumb rubs delicately against the mouse-key pad. I prepare myself for the usual routine–size 8, small font style, even smaller hope of getting it right. If only the blinking line that scrolls along the very white screen could tap out inspiration. I like to imagine that great truths are communicated to me through the flickering line’s steady morse code. It relays the secrets buried beneath the tapping keys. It tells what is still unknown to me. Flicker…Flicker….Failure….Flicker… I have been assessed. Excuse me, the computer assessed me. Is that grammatically incorrect; can a computer “assess”? Is it significant? Passive or Active–I only know tense. The kind that results in grinding teeth, fingernails digging into the skin, and breathing as a labored task. Proper grammar, perfect word choice, brilliant research, intelligent content, they all communicate the same thing to me. And the flickering line never stops chiming in with them, reminding me of the truth.

Eight. The bound spines, stacked high atop each other, face me. They overlook the words coming out of shaky hands, one per ten minutes. Stowe in her outdated but hopeful romanticism chants “you can do it!” from the porch of Uncle Tom’s cabin. “Wiseblood” seems to stare me down. If I was not 20 and of a sound mind, I would have leaned over and fiercely mumbled “I hope a car runs you over”. Instead, with expended frustration quaking through the vocal cords, I contemptuously say “Go to hell. I hope a car runs you over, throws it in reverse and goes back over a few more times for good measure”. But it only stares back unmoving. I swear the modernists, sandwiched between the hopeful romantics and the depressed post-modernists, are wrinkling their pages and jeeringly raising their drinks towards the ever ticking clock or never shrinking list. Is there much of a difference anymore? How quickly minutes slide into hours these days. My eyes are trapped looking at each spine begging to understand why I feel emptier and emptier by the moment. I wish to fool myself and chalk the hollowness down to the fact that Fitzgerald and Faulkner have been left out. But I’ve learned to detect the lies I use to deceive myself. My hand itches to pound through the stack. How quickly the love fades into contempt.

Eleven. I dragged my mother to the library twice a week. Sleepless nights would be spent devouring books. The stack of books was always depleted by Wednesday and we’d have to return for more. I owned a special purse that perfectly fit 15 books lying down, one on top of the other. On a rainy Wednesday, while staring at the shelves I realized that I had exhausted my reading choices. There was only rereading left for me. My abnormally light bag swung beside my leg as I went in search of my mother. “For Grown-ups” most likely did not run across the top of that door but the picture in my head says it did. Through that door I went eyes wide I gaped at shelves and shelves of unread books. My mom, where she came from I don’t know, asked what I was doing in this room. My eyes pleaded with her, seeking the approval to be called grown up. She rolls her eyes and points me towards the classics section. The smell of old books, musty, dusty, I am unsure of the adjective–delicious, yes delicious without ever taking a bite. Finger grazing along the spines, I quickly gathered the plunder and filled my sack with gold. Pulling out my credit card of library exchange, I smiled wide as I approached the front desk. There were no bells, kazoos, or balloons in celebration. The librarian had not been informed of the huge feat that had just occurred. One, two, seven, fourteen books came out of the bag. The smile stayed wide, against the boring normalcy of my check out, my excitement could not be squished. I delicately stacked the books back in my bag and with a last glance at my new world I went home to consume the new discoveries.

Fourteen. Penguin Publishing has a website for kids that explains the steps in making a book. One, it all “starts with an author’s idea” put down on paper. Then “much, much later”, when the author finishes his book, he sends it in to a publisher. (I’m not sure Penguin is fully appreciating the much, much later part.) From there the manuscript is evaluated by the editor and if she likes it she takes it to the publishing meeting, where they decide if they will actually publish the book. If yes, the author gets a contract set up and lots of people become involved. Editor, marketing manager, designer, sales manager, production manager, proofreader, and illustrator, they all play a part. When the book is designed, proofread, and illustrated (if it needs to be) it gets sent to the printers. At the printers “sheets of paper are folded, gathered, and bound inside the cover and trimmed to the right size”. The story has become a book.

Twenty-six. I heft a new pile of books up the library steps every week. Criticisms, Commentaries, Biographies–each genre is involved in a love-hate relationship with me. They have the potential to be fascinating when time allows one to be bored enough to read them. The student worker, a fellow English combatant, sends a sympathetic look my way as he checks the new batch out. I shove the books down into my bag and trudge home. My back has come to resent the library. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of me join in singing my aching back’s tune.

Infinity. Flipping through pages. Fishing for key words. Finishing is a long way from now. There is a system to the madness. One, find key words. Read around key word and decide if it’s useful. Red, blue, green, yellow, orange tabs soon grow out of the book. Tab important pages, write two word summary of significance on note card, and move on. A whole lot of time, a whole lot of research, and a whole lot of feeling as if you’ve accomplished nothing. At the end of it all, you have a stack of books that look like they have been attacked by wet skittles, who left streaks on the pages as they dashed away to escape death by tedium. And that same overly white screen with that good ole’ flickering line made no step closer to completion.

Sixteen. In a matter of hours the fate of my grades leaves my control. Though it feels as if that control was removed weeks ago–life, unlike a book, is a series of uncontrollable episodes. And that flickering line on my screen joins in the noiseless revelry of mockery. Flicker…Flicker…Failure…Flicker…honestly, I already know my fate. A kite inside a tornado. A lawn chair on the beach watching the waves being sucked out into sea and the tsunami thundering in. A shingle gripping the roof in a hurricane. A tree at the bottom of the mountain watching the rocky avalanche crush its way down. A house on a side of a mountain awaiting the annihilating eruption of rock, ash, lava, and pyroclastic flow. Ironically, the splintered feelings about my future make more sense in fragments.

Six. I look to my right, a second stack of paperbacks. Spain, France, and Russia are apparently the only countries contributing to the European novel. I sneer at them with hollow resentment. Read, tested, put to paper–in the world of credits they are now useless. In a different time frame I would have fallen in love with them. With a different end result, I could have looked on them in fond remembrance. I look back to the left at the pile of American dreamers stacked high. There is still a slim, fading hope that I will take their credit with me into the new year. Deadlines approach, wasted money, wasted efforts, wasted typing, and I even feel a sense of wasted reading. Somewhere in the chaos I lost my love. Experimentation has turned to conformed, rubricated, and reproduced junk, confident freedom has turned to hopeless doubt, and the fond smell of old pages has turned to into a hated reminder of another resented night without sleep.

 

 

Two. I watch the hours clock by. The deadline is thundering up upon me. Books stacked and ready to go, coffee in my largest cup, peanuts to snack on, and that obnoxious flickering line on my white Word document. Flicker…Flicker…Failure…Flicker. I do not type, I can not type. The defeatist in me asks if I remember why I keep fighting. My mind can not stop thinking long enough to think academically. I type a sentence. I delete two.

 

hmmm college drop-out?

Some of the jumble in my head lately.

So I am hating my major. I am realizing all the things I have cut off about myself because my heart was broken my freshman year of highschool. And my heart was broken not in the flippant life you slapped my hand type way, but in the wow life just ripped me in two. And now after a sequence of events, I’m tired of living without passion. I’m tired of fearing the things that use to make my heart pulse. So in frustration at the waste of schooling the last 3 years have been and the anger I have at myself for just turning off and letting life just float by…I wrote this essay for one of my classes. This I suppose is insight to half of what I’ve been thinking through lately. It’s like tapping the surface…but at least I began to tap.

 

ON BAND-AIDS

I was in middle school when I slipped and slid down an old wooden ladder and removed a solid chunk of my thigh. Pieces of skin still hung from the protruding rusted bolt when the dizziness and urge to barf receded. The next three weeks were torture.
      Every night my mom reapplied the massive 5 by 7 photo-sized bandage to the gap of missing skin above my hamstring. Through the day the gash would begin to heal and scab in between the filaments of the gauze only to be aggressively ripped out once again that night. A large dose of hydrogen peroxide would burn through the gash with a pain that the fun display of bubble-works couldn’t even waylay. Prodding for splinters came shortly after a strong squeeze to bust puss from the infected edges. Next a generous amount of ointment and an hour of breathing time for the wound were applied (while I lay paralyzed on my stomach sick from the pain and fearing any further movement). Finally gauze and tape were reapplied to the fragile, throbbing skin. By the time I could be bandage free I was sure to have lost a lifetime of dermis. Yet the raised discolored scar running along the length of my thigh today, speaks not of a loss of skin, but an overproduction of collagen, i.e. scar tissue.
           Scars were once a statement of bravery and valor. To hold scars showed that you had faced the enemy, fought it, and come out still alive. Though calling out your inability to avoid any harm, the scar proved that you had fought and ultimately won the war. They were a reminder of your mistakes. They were a symbol that you hadn’t completely lost yet. It was once said that you could look at the scars of a soldier and know the story of his life.

Now humans spend billions of dollars trying to get rid of every last scar.

Science has come a long way over the years. The invention of Scar Solution Neosporin bandages claim to remove or at least lighten the look of any scar in 8-10 weeks. A new gel made from onion extract can be massaged into the scar over a couple of weeks to lessen the appearance of it. If you have a pretty penny in your pocket you can move on to more advance scar removal. Dermabrasion is a large practice that essentially scrapes away scars allowing new skin to grow back in evenly and with the correct pigment. If the thought of a blade coming at your already marred skin scares you, there is always laser surgery to remove the scars.
      Or maybe science has just gone full circle as more dermatologists push for natural scar removal. They tell you to apply aloe while the cut is still fresh to avoid any over collection of tissue. Perhaps your doctor will even write you a prescription for mass amounts of lemon juice with the directions to rub three times daily– watch the scar tissue tenderize and fade away.

After all, the less people see of our scars, the less they know about us.

      I was 17 when I lost feeling in my heart. It continued to beat, blood came in, blood went out, life went on, but I was sure that my heart was no longer whole. My inability to breath proved my lungs were also going. Despite what science says, I breathed while the muscles of my heart unraveled, pulled apart with the ease of melted metal, yet with the pain of solid steel snapping out of your chest. The “lub-dub lub-dub” melody that should play into the stethoscope no longer existed. The valves had been bought out by the corporate monster called Life and closed their doors for good. Carbon dioxide filled blood plowed into my lungs and breathing became labored. This was a laceration that no x-ray, CAT scan, or echocardiogram was going to find.

What isn’t physically broken is hard to fix.

      Humans spend copious amount of time trying to understand how love works. Some would say that you see that person across the room and you just know. Others say you end up falling in love with the least suspecting person–that person who you look at and think, “never, no never”, and then WHAM your stomach has done a circle and you’re standing there puzzled with your heart on your sleeve. 
        The movie industry addresses the perplexity of love all the time. Clearly everyone has their own love story. The only concrete idea in a love story is girl and boy meet and at some point they fall in love. How the couple meets, what they go through together, the fights they have are all different. And thus the “You’ve Got Mail”, “A Walk to Remember”, and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” movies themes are born. Every story is essentially the same-a love story-but every one has its own twist and turns. And every person knows this; everyone knows that love is a universal thing, but such a personal and unique experience. Yet you become sure you are the only one who has ever experienced love like this.
      People looked at the smile radiating off my face and would whisper as I walked by “Now that’s a girl with true love”. It was a love induced high that I was holding onto with both hands, never planning to let go. I had found my best friend and I wasn’t ever giving him up. Being near him was like placing your ear to a shell and hearing the echo of the ocean, except I heard my heart beat echo back. Before him my life had been shattered, like a house of cards blown apart in hurricane winds. He came in and everything seemed to right itself. Cards balanced in ways I never would have imagined, far behind what my mind had ever dreamed to discover. Love continued to grow and soon we were both set on forever. But sometimes forever is not set on you.
       Fullness and squeezing in the center of your chest. Lightheadedness. Fainting. Shortness of breath. What looks like symptoms of a heart in love also point to a heart on the verge of attack.

And people tell us that emotional feelings and physical pain have no connection.

       He was gone, days after one mistake, he was gone and everything was broken. The castle house of cards fell aimlessly to the table, cards slid off the surface and through the cracks in floor, foretelling that there was no chance of rebuilding.
       I stared into the mirror. Nothing had changed. My face still had the same form, my skin was unmarred, and my heart was pulsing at regular beats, even my teeth shown of white healthiness. All I saw was the gaping wound buried deep inside. I saw my lungs wilting like a flower overtaken by an early winter, my heart beating slower and slower until it pulse one last breath and collapsed in on itself. The synapses in my brain snapped a last time, overcharged and flipped off, only running enough to stay on auto-pilot. I fell into a deep hibernation, while still moving throughout life. Sirens blared in the homes of white blood cells as they rushed to the site of attack and battled to heal the dying.
       Every night for 3 years I crawled into bed as my body ripped the gauze off the heart that was sliced in two. Mindless hands would push at the puss growing there, pulling the infecting pieces out, splashing liberal amounts of hydrogen peroxide on the wound, letting the abrasions breath and throb with pain, before applying imprecise butterfly stitches, wrapping it tight, and preparing for another twenty-four hours of dull pain. By the time I could leave the heart bandage free, I had lost a lifetime of living. The invisible scar running the length of my heart today, speaks not of physical infliction, but a life changing attack on the heart.
       Despite all the inventions and money making ventures of this capitalist world, we have yet to discover the quick healing bandages for invisible wounds. We as humans have learned to treat them as invisible elephants in the room rather than attack them with laser procedures that will make them disappear. We tip toe around them. We make them into a cliché joke. Rather than healing or healthily dealing with them, we cover them in Winnie the Pooh or Dora the Explorer band-aids and tell ourselves they are nothing more than a mere paper cut. Yet every time Life comes along with her invisible knife and slices at us once more, not only do we find ourselves with a new cut, but the old scars rip open and begin to shed tears of blood. Bloody tears that tells us we have experienced far more than a paper cut.
       I was 20 when my best friend was in a car accident and died. She was the only human who had seen the scars covering the body and been able to read the life story of this warrior. I stared at her coffin as I stood in the muddy grass on that chilly day. Life reached her hand out and slid her knife through the muscle splitting the ventricular septum and collapsing the right and left ventricles of my heart into each other. Tears streamed down my face as I placed my hand on the coffin, said goodbye, and walked away. Tears full of blood streamed out of the scar across my heart as the new wound pulses beside the scar pushing blood into the open cavity of my body.

That day I promised myself to throw all my band-aids away.

 

 

so it’s rough…but hey, baby steps, baby steps. One day I’ll be able to get it out in detail.

 

love and peace. Kimmie

can’t speak it…why don’t you ramble write it?

I’m an English major, though at times I’m not quite sure why. It’s not like I enjoy writing lit analysis paper after lit analysis paper for subjective grades. I mean I like the reading, only if it wasn’t assigned…there is something about assigned reading that makes me want to challege authority and defy their “Schedules” and just not do it–even if I like the book. Anyway I digress, when people hear that I’m majoring in English and enjoy creative writing, one of their first questions always happens to be “oh do you journal a lot then?” And they seemed a bit perplexed, if not angry, when I answer, “nope-not really, not anymore at least. I gave it up a while ago.” No one really asks why I gave it up (I think they get lost in confusion over an English major who wouldn’t want to journal). The quickest response to this annoyance of journals is simply put that a few years back my heart was broken by someone and I gave up a lot of things about myself in my terrible attempt at recovery.

Ironically, I’m now in the process of typing this little ditty…which I’m pretty sure would count as a journal. Why the change? My hearts been broken again, and I’m realizing the swiftness of life and how the world keeps moving while you’re still shellshocked. I’m finding that if you’re not REALLY talking about the true issues going on in your life (which is pretty much my way of life) and you’re not writing about it…then it’s just sitting there. Getting worse and worse and throwing life out of whack. So here I go…I’m going to attempt to write what I can’t seem to say…