9.18.13

I'm at school, and I connect with this.

seven things

Things I like:


Mushrooms.

Sad punk music.

The way onions smell cooking on the stove; the way they whistle at you to remind you to stir them.

Library books.

People who carry pocketknives. 

Lemon zest.

People who say "I love you" first.

Monday Night Late Lab

In last night's Geology class, we watched a video about volcanos. It was full of destruction, ruined homes, fires, floods. We witnessed people trapped in a mudslide, families running away from the ash, and photographs of scientists killed in their research. Toward the end, there was a brief shot of two cats floating down a flooded street on some wreckage. And the whole class said, "Awwww."

I'm wondering why it was the cats that hit our emotions, and not the people. It's something I don't understand.

getting it together

Maybe someday soon I'll get myself a marmalade-colored kitten, happy and adventurous.

Maybe I'll get a pony-sized dog, with big paws and melty eyes.

Maybe someday soon I'll get a tiny tattoo.

Maybe I'll meet new people, people who light up when they talk about strange, specific things.

Maybe I'll find people to play music with. 

Maybe I'll start writing poetry again.

There's new tea to try, and watercolors to buy, and books to read. There's blankets and flannel shirts and postcards to send.

Maybe I'll get my ease back. 

Maybe someday soon.

(Two days ago, my best friend asked me if I was okay. And, yet again, he proved himself a better listener and a better friend than I ever dared to hope for. I love him more than I can elucidate. But maybe he'll read this, and know how much it meant.)

some self-indulgent emoting, with an emphasis on being loved and how to love in return

In the middle of last week, my friend left me a voicemail, and by the end of it I was crying in the middle of the kitchen. Sometimes the love of people is too much -- I know I don't deserve it and I don't know what to do with it. I've scarcely picked up my phone since. I'm afraid of electrocution.

A few weeks ago, a friend's mom came up to me in church. She smiled straight into my eyes and said, "How are you?" She ruffled the back of my hair softly. I haven't been able to get the incident out of my head.

Lately, someone I love very much has been causing me pain. And I'm trying to figure out how to react to it. My first instinct is to curl up into a tiny ball with my armor on the outside, like the roly-polys I played with as a kid. My first instinct is to get cold and hard, and act like it doesn't hurt at all.

Being loved by other people makes me acutely uncomfortable. But the opposite hurts in a different way. I'm doing my best not to steel myself against either kind of pain. I want to be soft. I want to love as deeply as I can.

(If you have any advice, let me know.)

a remedy

1. Stop refreshing facebook. Log out. Turn off your phone. You will not feel better for its silence.

2. Come to terms with the fact that sometimes you will miss people more than they miss you. Remind yourself that this is not weakness.

3. Acknowledge your loneliness. Refuse to feel empty.

4. Remember that time passes. Think of happier things. You are worth loving, and people are eager to love you. Let them show you.

5. Love them back. Soft hearts may dent, but granite hearts will shatter. Forgive, again and again, and do not let yourself flinch away from the antiseptic sting.

6. Pray. You don't have to hold the world together. You don't have to hold yourself together. Find rest, and know that regardless of loneliness, of hurt, of unrequited caring, you are infinitely treasured.

(I went away. I saw the two people I've written about more than any others, and it was good. Now I've returned, and these are the words I need to be reminded of. How has your week been?

Love.)

curious happiness

"Looking at herself in the mirror, with the bright morning sunlight freshening even the blue room of Hill House, Eleanor thought, It is my second morning in Hill House, and I am unbelievably happy. Journeys end in lovers meeting; I have spent an all but sleepless night, I have told lies and made a fool of myself, and the very air tastes like wine."

- from The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson