Sometimes, I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear
And I can’t help but ask myself how much I let the fear
Take the wheel and steer…

I think I’m rebelling.

Is this what rebellion is supposed to feel like?

I never had the urge to go against the grain — even when I was ten years younger, even when you’re supposed to take risks and feel a little reckless, even when you’re at that age when you’re allowed to make mistakes because you know that’s how you learn…Even then I never had a need for rebellion.

Maybe it’s because, instead, I’ve always felt a sense of responsibility — for myself and for others. Maybe it’s because I’ve always known that actions have consequences and I could never want anyone to experience the ill-effects of those consequences.

Maybe it’s because I’ve always seen the bigger picture.

I want so dearly to be that good person. I try so hard to make a difference, to make good choices, because I want it to matter. In the end, I want it all to matter. I want to look back and be proud of who I am because of where I’d been, and while it might not be my best characteristic, I want others to be proud of me, too.

It’s driven me before
And it seems to have a vague, haunting mass appeal
But lately I’m beginning to find that I
Should be the one behind the wheel…

But now, something in me has changed.

It feels like everything has changed with the surgery, as if by letting go of that non-vital organ, I’d subconsciously let go of every poisonous emotion of which my soul has no need. For years, I’d held on to my grief and fear; they became comfortingly familiar, wrapping around my heart like a blanket to bring me solace during the darkest nights of winter and the tear-soaked days of spring. I mourned the past as something gone forever and I lamented a future for what could never be — or who could never be part of it.

They were my protection, this grief, this fear — they were my shield against further heartache; they were the emotions I’d come to know too well, and if my heart was already filled by them, then nothing else could get through.

Not the bad…

But not the good, either…

And so, I withdrew beneath layers of protection, beginning to believe that I somehow deserved it all, becoming buried under the weight of an illness and grief and a fear of life itself.

When you’re stuck in the darkness for so long, it’s hard to remember what the world looks like in the light.

But shed a little light on those dark corners, and your whole world will change.

So if I decide to waiver my chance to be one of the hive
Will I choose water over wine and hold my own and drive?
It’s driven me before
And it seems to be the way that everyone else gets around
But lately I’m beginning to find that
When I drive myself my light is found…

Everything has changed.

The tattoo, the briefest of flings with the quintessential bad boy, the sudden renewal of ambition and drive to see every crazy dream come alive…

Something has sparked within me, something I haven’t felt in a long, long time, and if I felt it once before at all, it was only the briefest of flickers then:

I want to be a little reckless, a little less rational.

I want to take chances, to leap without looking.

I want, for once, to get out of my own head — my own way — and live entirely by my heart…

I want to fail — I want to know that I can always try again.

I want to make mistakes — I want to know that there’s always more to learn.

I want to love the wrong person, make the wrong decisions — I want to be able to recognize the right ones for myself.

I want to fall because only then will I know what it means to fly.

I’ve been so afraid to make the wrong choices; I’ve been so afraid of failing and losing and letting everyone down that I’d forgotten the pure joy of what it means to take those risks, to feel fully alive.

So maybe I really am rebelling — defying the darkness and taking a chance with only hope on my side.

Maybe I’m changing. Maybe I’m simply rediscovering a greater part of myself.

Maybe, just maybe, I’m finally setting my own self free…

Whatever tomorrow brings, I’ll be there
With open arms and open eyes

- Incubus,  “Drive” -

Where have you been? I ask myself.  

And as I stare at the woman in the mirror, into those same brown eyes that have been reflected back my entire life, a voice whispers in my soul:

Here I am now.

I fell in and out of love today…

He’s a mix of brown and black and white with short legs and wrinkles across his brow. He was hesitant as I opened the door and called to him, and when I bent down and reached out my hand, he scampered off down the sidewalk before turning back around to see if I would follow. My bare feet feeling like ice against the sidewalk, I crouched down again and waited for him to come to me.

He sniffed my hand, still uncertain of the stranger that I seemed. Then, a kiss as I scratched behind his ears and called him sweetheart.

I brought him into the house — where he promptly peed on the carpet — and watched the reactions of Riley and Mikey.

Riley’s tail wagged as they sniffed each other; Mikey glared at me (“What the hell is this?”) as the puppy chased him upstairs and then proceeded to investigate this strange new place.

I  named him Bailey.

He stole my heart.

But there was someone else who’s heart must have been breaking at the thought of losing him, I thought. And I could only imagine how I would feel if Riley had been that lost little boy.

I let them out to play in the yard and took a picture to post on Facebook and Twitter; I called the local police to file a report of a missing Beagle puppy with a collar but no tags, telling him he could stay with me until his family was found rather than being sent away to a holding facility; I took him to my vet’s office to have him scanned for a microchip.

All the while, I kept smiling — funny how all it takes is sweet innocence to make that happen.

He curled up on my lap as I pressed kisses against his head, simultaneously stroking Riley’s fur to tell him it was all alright. I thought, this house was meant for love, and all the teasing about wanting another dog suddenly became very real.

My phone rang about two hours later, just as I was at the vet’s office discovering that he hadn’t been micro-chipped. They’d gotten my number from the police after they discovered their little escape artist had run away. Bailey (real name: Apollo) and I sat huddled together on the front steps of my porch as we waited for his dad to arrive from two blocks over.

The soulful, trusting eyes, the happy, friendly countenance…Here again was love in its purest form.

With a smile, my heart full of happiness at being able to reunite a family, I said goodbye.

Meeting Bailey — maybe even rescuing him, if you can call it that — couldn’t have been more apropos. I’ve always believed that where there are dogs, there is love; I’ve always believed that they are the sign that it will all be alright.

But today, it became more than that.

He was the reminder that you never know who will come into your life; he was the gift that said, “look how you love, look how you’re loved.”

This weekend, I discovered that love isn’t a fairytale. I’d been hurt and used, my kindness taken advantage of in a story I’m not quite ready to tell. Suffice it to say, I opened my heart for someone who didn’t deserve it, though I didn’t know that until the damage had been done.

I could have blamed myself — and a small part of me did, for being too trusting, for believing too much in the good in people — but instead, I found my strength, my spirit. Instead, I realized that we all have a choice in life — we can drown with the suffering of others who refuse to change or we can soar and find others who wish to fly with us.

I choose to fly.

Pretty faces can sing pretty words and make pretty promises to keep you coming back.

They can call you sweetheart and stroke your face and beg of you to trust them.

It could be so easy to be lulled back in, to give up everything you stand for as they pull you under with them. It would be so easy to become so jaded after the heartache — to see another stranger calling to you and keep running away, never knowing if they mean help or harm…

But Bailey trusted me.

And he’ll keep on loving and trusting no matter who wanders in and out of his life, and in that, in those few hours, he has taught me the greatest lesson of all…

Let yourself make mistakes: love the wrong person, feel too much, let your heart get broken. Then, let yourself say goodbye.

It’s only then that you’ll find your strength, only then that you can make room for those who love and trust and see in you something special, too.

It’s only then that you can discover how the love you hold inside of you is only a fraction of the love you deserve…

Here was a little boy lost.

Here is a little girl found.

Life brings on unexpected changes
But we must carry on despite it
Are we gonna try,
Are we gonna make it?

* * * * *

I didn’t see it coming — not any of it.

Not the peace and solace and independence of a home to call my own.

Not the return of a faith I’d all but forgotten, a faith I had once upon a time denounced.

Not one of the most powerfully emotion-evoking experiences of my life.

And certainly not the illness.

And definitely not the tattoo…

I wish I could say that I’d had it all planned — the good parts, anyway. I wish I could say that I knew that this past year would be about healing, that I’d had some kind of foresight and that I didn’t have to resort to healing physically when I refused to let go and heal emotionally.

I wish I could say I had welcomed the new year with a heart full of wishes — and maybe they were there, those hopes and resolutions and dreams. But they remained there, distant and unsung as the days crept into weeks and the weeks turned to months.

As a year flew by.

I didn’t expect this past year to unfold as it did, with its challenges and changes in this never-ending story of life, but maybe life is sweeter that way.

Maybe the tears that are shed are worth it as you remember how to smile.

Maybe the pain and heartache that seem to suffocate you helps you hold on.

Maybe the darkness shows you where’s there’s light.

No, I definitely didn’t expect any of it, but I’m somehow grateful for all of it.

Because for the very first time, I’m not just talking about moving on, moving forward; for the first time, I’m not anxiously wondering what the future will hold while longing for the safety and comfort of the past.

For the first time, I’m saying goodbye for the last time.

There’s a wish in my heart now as the new year draws near. A wish and a hope and a prayer that this healing lasts, that this sense of renewal, this rediscovered sense of self, this faith continues to grow and guide and embrace.

We’ve come so far…I never expected any of it.

I’m grateful for all of it.

For the first time, in a long time, I can’t wait to see what happens next.

* * * * *

There is a future in our stars
There is beauty that is ours
We’re gonna make it…
- Lenny Kravitz, “The Future Song”

Reflections

A sampling of posts from the past year…

Once There Was A Darkness
(Posted: January 5, 2011)

I can’t say for sure when or how things changed, but I can feel it every single day. And I can feel that I’m still changing with every moment. There are times when I want to hide away, but I know now that’s more my reflective nature than an escape, and while the fear still resides, I’m realizing that it has only served as an unnecessary blockade to everything that’s important to me:

Learning. Loving.

Living.

You Won’t Find Faith or Hope Down A Telescope
(Posted: January 26, 2011)

Science means questioning and testing the world around you. Spirituality means believing in something that can’t be proven true.

We often divide the subjects into these two categories: fact vs. faith. But maybe it isn’t as simple as that. Maybe the two somehow go hand-in-hand as we try to discover more about ourselves and our world: experimenting, believing, questioning, learning.

Maybe it’s about taking the scientific approach and hypothesizing, experimenting, trying while having faith that you’re working towards something, that a dream can possibly come true.

To Dream of Love
(Posted: February 14, 2011)

I dreamt that we were in love, something that I haven’t felt in years, at least, not in the waking world and not at this capacity.

And it seemed in all this time between love and now I’d forgotten what it was like to  imagine forever being so near; I’d forgotten how to let myself love as I want to love, fully and unrelenting and, in turn, I’d forgotten how to be loved. 

Welcome To My Silly Life
(Posted: March 8, 2011)

Later, I’ll wonder again how someone like him could love me as he does, wonder what he could possibly see in me when there are thousands of other girls, wonder what he can see in me that I can’t see in myself.

Later, I’ll think I’m proven right when the tears fall freely, when this moment becomes just a memory in this closed chapter in this story of my life.

But now, I believe him.

Tears Are Not Enough
(Posted: April 4, 2011)

One person can’t fix the world. Not on their own, no matter who they are, not without breaking or drowning themselves in the process.

Maybe that’s why we all have our own causes, the ones that touch our hearts, the ones we shed our tears over, the ones that become so personal that we can’t believe others don’t feel the same way, the ones that make us want to build that awareness so that others can understand not only why it touches you so, but to encourage their participation, their own efforts for change.

Untouchable
(Posted: April 27, 2011)

No, self-esteem isn’t a switch you can flip, but it’s a battle against the voices that haunt you, the voices that sound so very much like your own, that threaten to spread it’s poison as it belittles you, as it demeans the goodness in who you are.

It’s a journey — a very personal and difficult journey — in discovering and rediscovering and discovering yet again who you are and why you are so loved.

Misunderstood.
(Posted: May 12, 2011)

Compassion is how I connect with people; passion is how I connect to life, and these forums showcase some of the deepest parts of myself because this is my way of expression. This is a part of who I am, this is who I am as a writer, this is who I am in my deepest, secret heart of hearts, this is who I am at the core of my person. But this is not all of me, not by a longshot.

You Will Not Be Alone
(Posted: May 17, 2011)

Maybe this is why I hold on so dearly to everything that I love, why I’m so desperately afraid to move on, move forward. Because goodbye may mean so long, for now, but it still means saying goodbye.

Gather Up Your Tears, Love
(Posted: May 28, 2011)

He wrote me recently, a brief, quick note saying that his grandmother had found a picture of us from high-school prom, a memory that made him write three words that tore right into me: “I miss you.”

Happy.
(Posted: July 5, 2011)

I wanted to hang onto this feeling — this understanding of who I am and what my place in this world might be, this revelation that we’re all growing up and, though I fought so hard against it, how beautiful it can be…Because if growing up means your best friend is this happy, then it has to be worth it, it has to be something good.

Silence
(Posted: August 15, 2011)

Maybe all it takes is silence to learn how to listen.

Maybe all it takes is listening to find your voice again.

 Maybe in this silence, I’ll find what I’ve been missing.

Goodbye Alice In Wonderland
(Posted: September 5, 2011)

Maybe I’m just like those doctors and their prescriptions. Maybe I’ve been fooling myself into thinking that all it would take was a couple of smiles, a couple moments of happiness, of reminding myself who I am and it would all be better…Maybe I’d been fooling myself into thinking I could be so strong.

Building Up Hope
(Posted: October 4, 2011)

I know it now, tonight, hearing my mom’s voice on the other end of the phone as she calls to check in on me, as she hears the tears in my voice — the first time in these six weeks I’ve cried — as I tell her I love her. That I’ll always love her.

And I’ll always need her.

Like A Prayer
(Posted: October 17, 2011)

I’m supposed to be learning something from this, right? To put things into perspective, to understand that this is just a moment in a life and I’ll get through it, that people have been through much harder, much worse. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be learning?

From Dust To Diamond
(Posted: November 7, 2011)

Because he loves me, unconditionally, and in him, I can unabashedly place all the love I hold in my heart — a love that runs so deep, so full, that it constantly threatens to spill over; a love that I’ve only ever longed to share, and it’s in this creature who knows the depth of love, too, that I can share it without shame, without fear of judgment or rejection.

Love Infinity
(Posted: December 12, 2011)

Remember love?
It was times infinity…

What Remains
(Posted: December 20, 2011)

It’s been the last piece in this journey as I get back to who I am, who I’m proud to be. It’s the reminder that time heals in so many forms, that to hold on, you have to let go, that life will be filled with hellos and goodbyes and nothing can keep the heart from hurting, but that just means the loving was strong.

* * * * *

We will open the book.  Its pages are blank.
We are going to put words on them ourselves.
The book is called Opportunity
and its first chapter is New Year’s Day. 

~Edith Lovejoy Pierce~

Happy New Year!

We traveled familiar roads on a cool and overcast December morning.

Familiar turns and landmarks rolled past, but the mobile home parks and three-story mansions with blinking Christmas lights, the schools and bank branches displaying their vacation times or holiday hours, the farmland that gave way to even more sprawling farmland all seemed little more than a blur as we drove on, the memories close behind as we caught up to what we’d lost.

In the backseat, Grandma shared stories of people I’d never met and murmured recollections of the way things were. In the front, I shared glances and knowing smiles with Dad as we got lost in our own thoughts, our own reminiscence.

We pulled into the long driveway of Fort Indiantown Gap and drove past section after section of fallen soldiers and retired heroes, their resting places celebrated with wreaths and flowers and holiday bows.

“Are you ok?” I quietly asked Dad as our eyes scanned the section numbers for the one we all knew too well.

“Yeah,” he said in a way that I knew he was.

We parked on the side of the drive and stepped out into the cold that seemed to cling to the air; a group of bicyclists and other mourning families congregating near their own loved ones. We walked among the headstones claiming love and loss — World War I, World War II, Vietnam, Korea…Beloved Husband, father, brother, son.

May you rest in peace.

Grandpa’s was easy to spot. Two summers ago, I’d found peace in this spot, when peace seemed to only slip through my grasp as I tried to hold on tighter. I’d been lost then, the last time I had visited this place. I’d been lost and alone and searching for something I couldn’t name…

Self. Happiness. Love. Understanding.

Faith.

It was a time when I’d wondered if I would ever believe in love again…To believe that love would matter, to believe that love was worthwhile when all the prayers were left unanswered, when hope seemed to waver, and when goodbyes seemed nothing but permanent, punctuated by a never-ending heartache and wishes for the impossible.

Once upon a time, I feared the inevitable and wished for the impossible. I thought that, somehow, if I held on, maybe it would hurt less. I thought, maybe, by keeping the memories alive, I would somehow still feel close to them. I didn’t want to forget them — I didn’t want to believe that a life could be so fragile and so fickle, that someone could be so easily forgotten.

Once upon a time, I had to say goodbye.

But it wasn’t until this December morning that I finally began to understand what that meant…

We stood in silence for a moment, trying to shake the cold as a few flurries fell from the sky; I put my arm around my dad and pressed my head against his shoulder, watching as Grandma placed a Christmas wreath against the headstone, this simple gesture saying, “you’re still remembered, you’re always loved.”

We hurried back to the warmth of the car, silent prayers in our hearts and smiles on our faces as we started the long drive back home, laughing and teasing each other as only family can and creating another memory to keep in the secret spaces of the heart.

* * * * *

Hours later, the windshield wipers on my friend’s car worked in steady rhythm to clear the soft snow that fell from the evening’s winter sky. As passing headlights and streetlamps illuminated the car, I couldn’t help but peak beneath the bandage on my left wrist, happiness bubbling into laughter as we joked and I leaned back against the headrest, almost in disbelief at the events of the night.

It had all been planned, but I didn’t realize how profound it all felt until this moment. As my eyes traced the symbol that was now a permanent fixture of who I am, I understood what a turning point this was.

Years in the wanting, my first tattoo. A heart with the infinity symbol.

It’s been the last piece in this journey as I get back to who I am, who I’m proud to be. It’s the reminder that time heals in so many forms, that to hold on, you have to let go, that life will be filled with hellos and goodbyes and nothing can keep the heart from hurting, but that just means the loving was strong.

It’s having faith in the knowledge that, in this life, there is love and there is loss, but in the end, love is what remains.

Love is what will always remain.

Love Infinity...

There’s a place that I know
It’s not pretty there and few have ever gone
If I show it to you now
Will it make you run away?

Saturday, November 5, 8pm

It’s my first night home from surgery after spending a week with my parents, and I never realized before how empty, how lonely, a home can be. It’s funny…I wanted to go home as soon as possible after the operation, but suddenly here I was again in my childhood home, being cared for, surrounded by the laughter and teasing and love of a family, and I found myself not wanting to leave.

Of course I didn’t.

A home is where your heart is, and my heart  has always been with my family.

But here I was in my own home  — a home of my own that I adore  — and I couldn’t keep from thinking of the place I’d just been, the home I’d just left. The silence began to invade every vulnerability, and though I tried to distract myself, nothing could stop the wave of emotion that threatened to crest. I kept watching the clock, praying for time to move faster so that I could go to sleep, so that I could lie in the comfort of my bed and close my eyes and forget the loneliness that had begun to seep back into an already emotionally weakened soul.

But Time doesn’t work like that, does it? And sometimes the nights can seem that much longer and that much harder.

So I grabbed my purse, clipped the leash on Riley and drove to my parents’ house. I barely said a word as I put my things down on the kitchen table, as Riley greeted my parents’ dog with a playful wag of his tail, as my parents asked in surprise what I was doing back, having gone home only hours before.

“I didn’t want to be alone,” I mumbled as I reached behind the couch to plug in the heating pad I’d been using religiously to ebb the physical pain. I wonder if there will ever be one that can numb the pain of an aching heart.

I could feel my mom’s eyes on me, but I kept my eyes averted, struggling not to cry.

“What’s wrong?” she persisted.

And then I felt the barriers break as my chest heaved in heavy sobs. Having been surrounded by people I love, by people who love me, it had become so hard to return to that silence, that awareness of how physically alone you can be. It’s not something that has taken me by surprise, not something I’m entirely unused to. The loneliness pervades, seems constant, buried for hours, days, weeks, months before it begins to rise to the surface again, seeping into the smallest of cracks in this armor. And suddenly, with little warning, I’m left feeling suffocated by the depths of everything I feel, and, oh, how I feel everything.

Or will you stay
Even if it hurts
Even if I try to push you out
Will you return?
And remind me who I really am
Please remind me who I really am…

Riley. On the drive over, I placed my hand on his head,  finding comfort in the texture of his fur, in just his presence, in the simple knowing that he was there, thinking that he was my anchor when I felt very much like I was floating away from everything real.

He’s been my saving grace in ways I’ve scarcely alluded to, for reasons I don’t think I’ll ever be brave enough to put into words. I may have saved him when I adopted him from the shelter, but he saves me every day. Every single day…on days when I’m aware of just how lost I feel and days when, for awhile, I have the relief of forgetting.

Because he loves me, unconditionally, and in him, I can unabashedly place all the love I hold in my heart — a love that runs so deep, so full, that it constantly threatens to spill over; a love that I’ve only ever longed to share, and it’s in this creature who knows the depth of love, too, that I can share it without shame, without fear of judgment or rejection.

He needs me, he depends on me, he lets me love him as I want to love everyone. And maybe it’s in that that I need him, too.

Like a diamond
From black dust
It’s hard to know
What can become
If you give up
So don’t give up on me
Please remind me who I really am…

I don’t get it.

I don’t get how I can have so many special people in my life, have so much love and happiness in this life, in my heart, and still feel so incredibly alone.

I don’t get how I can crave independence and then shun it in the next breath.

I don’t understand how I can be so blessed and still feel so fucked up.

I wish I could keep these emotions from persisting, from spilling over from my heart to my life. I wish I could learn to just accept things as they are, to continue to be grateful for all the blessings in my life– for there are so, so many — and to stop longing for something that I’m not even sure will change anything.

I wish I knew how to stop feeling so deeply, so much. I wish I knew how to channel these thoughts and emotions into something else, something that doesn’t leave me feeling so frozen with guilt at having these thoughts and emotions in the first place.

Most of all, I wish I knew how to stop wishing, when wishes don’t seem to be enough.

Everybody’s got a dark side
Do you love me?
Can you love mine?
Nobody’s a picture perfect
But we’re worth it
You know that we’re worth it
Will you love me?
- Kelly Clarkson, “Dark Side” -

UPDATED

When I posted a comment to Facebook/Twitter about how I was blaming this emotional-ism on being a writer, one of my dear friends, Brianne, countered with the following quote from the movie Raise Your Voice:

Terri Fletcher: Have you ever lost anyone?

Mr. Torvald: Yeah.

Terri Fletcher: I just can’t let this go.

Mr. Torvald: Well, you’re an artist and artists feel things differently than regular people. Look at Patsy Cline or Billie Holiday. You can hear it in their voice. Or, Vincent van Gogh. Cut off his ear, but hey, he could paint.

Terri Fletcher: Vincent van Gogh killed himself.

Mr. Torvald: That’s right. That’s a bad example. Hey, I’m a music teacher not a shrink. What do you want? I guess… what I’m trying to say is, artists convey emotion. They make an audience feel what they’re feeling. You know, that’s what it’s all about, right? You just have to find a way to take what’s in here [Points to his head] and put it in here [points to his heart]

It’s such an amazing quote that sums up everything I’ve ever felt…From not being able to let it go to realizing that I feel everything so acutely, so deeply, to shifting all of that from the head to the heart. It’s a quote I can’t stop thinking about, that makes me feel a little bit more accepting of myself.

Simply amazing. Thanks, Brianne!