i feel...

too late. in so many ways.

it's actually happening. and soon. i guess i knew...right? but i didn't believe.

somehow it still hurts. makes me ache and burn. even though i have no right; and have never been able to lay claim to the one i wanted the most.

even though i know we don't belong... even though i know, in regards to me, those eyes would never see more than they saw then... even though two hearts could hardly be less suited...

it still hurts.

life is unfriendly.

tomorrow.

what to do about tomorrow.

how does a year go by so quickly, and still not go by at all?

how have i spent 365 days?
how should i have spent them?
how have they changed me?

364 days have not changed me. one day did.

december 6, 2007

i miss you, dad. like the dickens. are you really not coming back?

more missing him.

i miss my dad a lot today. it comes and goes. somedays i only think of him a couple times and without even the pang. but today really choked me up. we're at 11 months. another few weeks and we'll hit the year mark, which is beyond me. a year without my dad! in about two or three weeks (like ten days before a year), it'll be a year since i've seen him.

he's been popping up in my dreams a lot lately...again. i guess i kind of like it. it's sort of like seeing him. it's hard, too, though.

he really loved me a lot. i keep thinking about that. there's this song called "my little girl" by pierce pettis, a singer my parents love. it's so sweet and perfect. but my parents couldn't listen to it since we all moved our different ways. it was too sad for them thinking about me as a little girl, etc. (they also couldn't keep pictures of chandos or me up around the house.) well, anyway, the song came up on my ipod yesterday and i can't get it out of my head now. i miss him so much.

still can't believe he's gone. like...not just for a year or two...but for the rest of my life. just gone.

i've been feeling like my old self lately.  

it's not a good thing.  

it's a scary thing.  

the old tendencies...the old daydreams.  

if only i could tell you about it.  

if only i could share the weight. 

tell you what really burns through my veins, 

and....well, everything.  

i would tell you everything if i could.  

but i can't. 

and i never will. 

i'll never be able to say it.  

it's all locked away, so tightly chained and buried deep, you'll never know. 

no one will ever know.  

except me.  

and that's the burden.  

that's why i say to you, "c'est la vie."  

and though you never push,

or ask to know, 

i wouldn't, 

i couldn't share anyway.

"Hi, this is Ed..."

When my dad died we saved a copy of his voicemail message off of his work cell phone. It says, "Hi this is Ed with ProTech Plumbing and Heating. ..." I remember thinking how light he sounded. Happy, I guess, but not giddy or anything. Just a very pleasant memory of his voice. The day he died I must have called his cell phone about a million times to hear it. I couldn't make myself stop calling it, actually. Over and over and over, just that happy little message.

One of my brother's friends was able to save it for us somehow and gave us a copy on disc. I have it on my computer, but haven't touched it. I stopped calling his phone number sometime after the first week, and now I can't bring myself listen to it. I want to hear my dad's voice again, but I'm terrified.

I was thinking today about why I haven't listened to it, and why I'm so afraid, and I think I've come to a conclusion of why I'm not ready. I'm afraid because what if I don't feel anything? What if I listen to it and it's nice, but it doesn't bring me to tears? Nothing brings me to tears these days. I desperately want to cry for my dad. Or for me for my dad. But I can't. Which is okay. Someday it'll come. I keep having to tell myself that, "It's okay." There's no real "normal" way to grieve. We're all different, right? So it's natural that we mourn in unique ways. I'm not really sure what my way is, but I have to remind myself that it's not like the movies.

fat, not phat.

why are we cursed with weight issues? or, better yet, why are we cursed with self-loathing? okay, so maybe that's a little strong. i don't "loathe" myself when i look in the mirror, but i hatehatehate what i look like naked. maybe that sounds funny or silly, but it reflects so strongly into my daily life. knowing what i look like without my clothes on makes me feel uncomfortable even with my clothes on. i still know what's under there. and i still know that a couple layers of fabric can't change my weight.

i'm heavier than i've ever been in my life right now, and i still have no self-discipline. i still go for the ice cream. have the latte. eat the cake. throw back the beer. i can't say no to things i like. (food and drinks specifically for this blog's purpose.) i don't know what to do anymore. i've been on great diets, when i lose 15 pounds or so in a couple months, but that's not enough anymore. i need to lose a significant amount of weight to fit back in those jeans i love.

and naturally it's not just the cute jeans i wish i had. i want self-confidence. i want to walk out the door someday feeling like i look really good. like people aren't thinking, "wow, that girl has a huge ass!" i want toned legs (reasonably, anyway), toned arms, a flat stomach, and i want to get rid of that cottage cheese that i keep finding in the most random places. places it should not be.

it just all seems so hopeless. so time-consuming and obsessive and pointless. i'm just going to gain it back anyway. and i'll never be able to do it.

okay, don't feel like you have to be all encouraging and, "no, youre beautiful!" and all that. i just need some empathy. :) i'm about 99% positive this is a struggle we all face at some point in our lives! but if you do have any miracle diet tips, by all means, let me know.

a dichotomy.

i was doing the whole facebook thing just a minute ago, on my "home" page, reading people's status updates and all that fun stuff. i like seeing the, "so-n-so added 11 new photos to the such-n-such album," too.
so i was looking at this girl's pictures; she's kind of an old friend from dallas. her mom used to watch my brother and me when we were kids, so i would play dress up and house with her. she's about five years younger than me, but she leads this life of dallas-party-scene-sophistication. plus she's just HOT. she used to be kinda chubby, i guess (in other words: normal), but one day she got sick of not being hot, went to the gym and never looked back. then she got fake boobs. then bleach blonde extentions. then she reeeally started to get the attention of the fellas. and i guess you could say she uses her sex appeal to her advantage. whatever that means, ya know?
anyway, she has these pictures from some night out to some club with some other leggy blondes, all four sippin' on cocktails in their little back dresses, looking extremely sexy, stuck-up, and...well...ridiculously fake. but no matter, i was still jealous. some part of me (for whatever silly reason), still gets a little envious of hot girls who live life in that damn "fast lane."
but here's the real reason i wrote this morning. not because i actually want to live that life she lives, but rather, because two status updates above this gal's newly added pictures, another friend of mine had posted a new note. she's a friend from estes who i met at a women's retreat and really got to know over some honest chats over a few months. (she's from australia; she lost her mom about a year before i lost my dad; ...we had a lot to talk about...) she's a great girl. i mean one of those that you just know you're a better person for even being in a room with her. she's real and honest, and gets terribly angry at God sometimes, but she's good and kind, and truly lives a Godly life.
i haven't even read her note yet. but when i noticed it sitting there on the screen an inch above the little-black-dress-cocktail-pictures, with the title, "We're in Uganda," the dichotomy of these two girls' lives struck me in a fascinating way. one's in africa, probably not showering, definitely not getting male attention, holding orphan children, comforting dying people, so happy with her life.
and the other girl is in dallas, living the high life, looking GOOD and making friends who buy her drinks, dating a lot, meeting rockstars, also so happy with life. but you tell me which happiness seems the emptier of the two. you tell me which life i should envy, or which girl i should wish to be like!
the black and white of it all is so astounding to me. not that i think the one is wrong for the life she lives in dallas. nor also do i think i need to be in africa right now to be content with my own life. but i guess i just see one life as going somewhere, and one as not. and so i pity the one.

i always stop making sense at the end of these things. :) that's why i'll never be a professional writer. i can't finish! but anyway. that's all for this morning.

halves.

why do we pretend uncomfortable things don't exist? i know i do this on a personal level. like, i fail to mention my love for Jesus, 'cause i'm afraid to offend someone. and i certainly hide my feelings on a daily, if not hourly basis, because who really wants to talk about feelings? (let's talk about yours, but not mine, please.)
but so much of our lives, and life, are hidden in these deep dark spots, so no one has to talk about the shit. see previous blog. but not just that. not just the really horrible, terrible stuff like child abuse, but simpler stuff like emotional pain and distress.
i love the organization To Write Love on Her Arms. i'm basically in love with this organization. there's this whole class of people (myself included) who have been slapping on smiles most of our lives because it's plain just not okay to show our real aches and sufferings. if we must talk about them, see a counselor. (but don't tell anyone we're seeing counselors, because they might think we're crazies.) seeing a counselor has become somewhat normalized, though, which i'm so eternally grateful for, like literally, thank you GOD for helping that to become "okay." but still, i feel like, the reason seeing a counselor has become so accepted, is that this whole movement of speaking our feelings publicly, and/or wearing them on our so-called sleeves, is frightening to the other half. the half who apparently don't ache inside like the half who do.
but there's a movement. it's like we're all finding each other and rising up. because maybe really we're all suffering inside. and maybe not! maybe some people really do not understand what it's like to hurt so badly. to be burdened by this invisible and unnamable presence. but i thank my friends at TWLOHA, and all of you who know how to share your shit, because i'm affected. i'm feeling like i can maybe someday do it, too.

anyway. i'm off track, and the train has derailed. maybe i'll finish this up later. most likely not, but at least i wrote!

rated R for four-letter words.

i went to a seminar on child sexual abuse today. that's some sad shit. and i do mean shit. there's no beating around the bush with this one.

to think. kids are born everyday...born without even a chance to live a happy, easy, simple life. fucking mother fuckers. this is when vigilante justice seems so honest. someone needs to murder those sons of bitches.

this one hits sort of close to home, as they say. i've seen the suffering, the absolute torment and anguish generated from this despicable, disgusting, horrifying abuse, and all i can see in my mind is myself holding a gun to some bastard's skull and making him beg for his life while i slit his arms and legs, cut for cut to match.

if that seems violent and carried-away to you, you haven't loved someone who's been on the receiving end of sexual abuse.

but let's not talk about it. it's uncomfortable. death is more comfortable than sexual abuse. saying, "my dad dropped dead of a heart attack," is way easier to hear than, "i know a CHILD who was molested by a family member for YEARS." don't talk about it, because it's gross and embarrassing and what if it's not true, then some innocent, sweet, kindly uncle might be accused of dastardly acts he never committed.

i'm fucking angry. i'm pissed. something needs to be done! i believe in God's final judgment, i do. but what if it's not enough?

they're children. they're beautiful and simple and life is not supposed to feel that way. stop being so fucking uncomfortable and see reality. face reality. it fucking sucks, but something can be done. and my absolute, unbendable heroes are the ones who are out there fighting the battle against sexual abuse.

[Jer 31:15] A VOICE WAS HEARD IN RAMAH,WEEPING AND GREAT MOURNING,RACHEL WEEPING FOR HER CHILDREN..

making up for lost time.

for some reason i didn't write the entire month of august. i'm losing steam here. i can't write. it's something to do with ADD, something to do with lack of inspiration, and a lot to do with exhaustion. just this general, "i don't have it in me today." and "today" has been a lot of days.

i remember once when i was younger, probably around ninth grade, i was singing at church and i fell in love with my own voice. in an instant, though, i was appalled by my pride and prayed God would take the rhythm and the notes away from me, that i might not harbor any self-admiration in my bones. i don't mean to sound all mythical (is that the word i'm looking for?), but the reason i remember that day so well, is because since then, i don't remember a single instant when i felt my voice was lovely.

i'm kinda there now, but with writing. okay, so i can put together a sentence. i'm not saying i'm incapable of writing well, but i am saying i don't feel it. and feeling it is really important. in this case, i never prayed God would take away my ability. in fact, now i don't feel like i ever had the ability, just a stroke of luck every once in awhile. so it's not a commonality in that God must have robbed me of this gift, rather that the feeling is similar. something i once felt i performed well, i now feel like i'm only average.

i've never been able to love myself. i don't completely hate myself. i like my hair sometimes. i like my sense of style sometimes. i have certain qualities that are decent...like i'm nice and easy to be around. but i can't say a positive thing about who i am or how i look without the voices in my head striking up their own conversation about why that particular thing is not actually my strength, and why my hair isn't even a for-sure, because i have bad hair days a lot, and it's frizzy if i don't tame it.

i ache. that's the only way i can say it. i ache all over inside. that thing, my "heart," (i've been told exists somewhere other than my chest cavity), it pounds with exhaustion, because it's incapable of being healed. and since i've only been through one major trauma in my life, and most of these "feelings" have been in existence long before my dad died, i can't exactly pinpoint this thing from which my heart even needs healing. counseling seems pointless. i've tried it, and it wasn't like the movies. no major breakthroughs. but i feel like that's because there's nothing in there. there's nothing to be discovered, except that i'm just dark and burdened for no good reason.

i've tried anti-depressants, and they help in some ways, but mostly they just kind of confuse me. it's like, i still think and feel all the same things i used to feel, just without the ache. i don't like myself anymore than i did. i don't feel anymore motivated or self-assured. i don't feel like i'm good at anything or gifted in any way; the main difference is just that i don't physically feel that thing inside me, inside my soul, banging around and hurting all the time.

so you wanna know the one conclusion i've developed? the thing that came to me in a split second that's kinda comforting and kinda not? i'm pretty sure that ache is a result of my separation from God. my separation resulting from my sinful nature, not specifically, because i did this and this and this, but generally, because i'm a human being and way back in the beginning of things, that connection was screwed up big time.

and yes. i know that through Christ i am again connected to my heavenly father. but i also know that part of salvation...nay...all of salvation is a result of faith, and thus, may not fix the internal discrepancy between accepting God, and being connected to God. if that makes an sense. which i'm pretty sure it doesn't. but i guess what i'm saying is that, i do have faith. i have loads of it. i trust completely that someday i will be reunited with God, because Christ is perfect and sacrificed his-everything that that bond may be reestablished. i also think, though, that while i believe all of the above with absolute resolve, i am still human, and for some reason, i'm hypersensitive to the loss. the loss of a daily garden romp with the King. the loss of complete obedience. the loss of innocence, and especially the loss of pure, unheeded lightheartedness.

burdened is an incredibly descriptive word for what i feel. yes, i have been saved. thank Jesus i have been saved and i never have to go back to hopelessness. but as long as i'm on this broken, severed, departed earth, how can i ever feel anything but a dreadful burden that stems from a deep, innate longing for Home?

these are rhetorical questions, of course. things i've been asking myself since i was very young, and things that i doubt will ever disappear in this lifetime. i do thank God, endlessly, for this fascinating hope he's instilled in this cavern. someone so burdened, so lost, so pained, and so broken (me), can still have such a solid, relentless, impenetrable belief in the glorious Thing to come, that is Eternity with him. perhaps that steadfast hope is my gift.

the end.

work today.

we moved boxes from rooms to trucks today.

the boxes (at least 600 of them, maybe more), were full of magic. heavy magic.

the boxes were full of books.

im so in love with books. so in love!

estes is having a used book sale friday morning, so the boxes are being transported to the holiday inn where the sale will take place. each box was labeled with a number, and each number coordinated to a category. for the first three hours out of three and a half, i was digging through the boxes labeled #1, because those were fiction novels. we only knew what boxes contained what by chance. like, if a box was dropped and books fell out, or if we happened to look. so i perused through any #1 i could find looking for books i'd like to own, only to realize in the last half hour that boxes with a FIVE were classic literature. my favorite. i mean, absolute favorite! so i came home with about ten new books today, and certainly could have grabbed more if i had ten more hands and time.

i'm positive i glow when i'm around books. so if you've ever wondered what i look like when i'm enamored, take me to a book shop.

heroes and me.

i want to do so many things. not like...travel, and "see the world" and all that. i mean, i want to be so many things. i want to be a writer. or a teacher. or a landscape architect. i want to move to mexico and open an orphanage. i want to adopt a million little kids who need homes.

i want to do something great.

but i don't know where to start.

and i feel overwhelmed.

and i feel like i'm going to fail wherever i turn.

this is why i read. so i might delight in, and live vicariously through, the lives of heroes.

wait, don't go

i started feeling really badly yesterday about the many layers of guilt i loaded on a few friends to come visit me this weekend. i didn't really feel guilty, though, until they committed to coming. so i started wondering (as usual) what's wrong with me, and why am i so demanding, and when am i gonna grow up, and all these little insecure thoughts that creep in when my world is nearing what feels like perfection.

i was elated when my friends told me they were coming. my chest got all tight and i felt this surge of something like happiness, thought i'm not convinced that's really what the sensation was. i keep thinking maybe i'm bipolar or something. anyway, we had a house full of people yesterday. people i love dearly, and people who genuinely love me, even at my ugliest, with so much gusto it's like i can literally feel it.

i know it's not the weirdest thing in the world to enjoy being surrounded by loving people, but i was thinking today, that maybe the reason i crave a full house is really more related to distraction. i can't think when my house is bursting at the seams. i have just about no time to sit around and do what i usually spend my time doing...over-analyzing and ripping myself apart.

i guess i really started to notice that element of enjoyment when the people slowly started packing their things and driving away this afternoon. the house got quieter and i found myself dreading the night, when everyone but us residents would be on their own pillows, somewhere far away, beyond my house.

i don't have much else to say on the matter. self-realization is tough. and it's so hard to separate the truth from whatever (-slash-) whomever is whispering bullshit into my ear.

an apology

i've done a great job of being selfish lately. i have it checked off in my head as perfectly excusable because of my recent(-ish) personal tragedy, but maybe it's never okay to be selfish.

so i'm sorry. i'm sorry for neglecting people and pulling away. i can't say, "i'm going to change," because i don't know that, and it's likely that i'm not going to try very hard, but please know i acknowledge my reclusive-ness, and i plan to make a comeback (of sorts) someday.

all of you who mean so much to me, who i've barely seen or spoken to since my stint in lubbock and my dad's death, please know that i love you deeply and my absence is not fault of your own. thanks for being dependable and loyal...for not being angry with me or blaming me, for being so incredibly patient and placing no demands upon me for performance.

hugs and kisses.

jumble.

i don't know how well i'm going to be able to articulate anything right now...i'm like.."sun logged" (like water logged, but too much sun...get it?), and i've been working all day, but i'd like to try. i probably write better stream-of-consciousness anyway.

lately i've realized this thing about myself...part of the bigger picture which, day to day, makes me feel miserable inside. i'm a perfectionist. now, if you know me, you might be thinking, "pah! uh huh!" 'cause there's really nothing about me that screams "i'm interested in perfection." my room/house is consistently a mess. i was an a/b student in college. i dropped out of law school. i can think of a million reasons why you may scoff at my considering myself a perfectionist, but i think i am in this weird other way. it's kinda like i need my life to be perfect, and when it's not, i freak out inside.

obviously the "dad-thing" doesn't help too much, but neither does living in the upstairs closet, nor does leaving my dog outside to fend for herself. which, really, is a big reason i thought of all this today. she, meaning my dog. i took her to the dog park, and she ran off at one point. of course i was angry, but more than anything there was this nagging in my mind, a furiousness that she wasn't behaving perfectly.

it wasn't really about her, though, as much as it was about me. that i couldn't control her and make her do what i needed her to do. i get this literal burning sensation in my chest and i just want to cry. on a grander scale...cry because things and life just aren't going perfectly, and there's pretty much nothing at all i can do about it.

blah.

timing and other bullshit

first i'll say...if you're reading this, please don't take offense, and PLEASE don't feel badly. i mean it.

now with that out of the way, i gotta get this out.

i watched "ps i love you" last night...and it was sweet. it was a good flick, but i argued with myself through most of it. well, myself and the author(s). i didn't really like the way grief was portrayed. or wait, not portrayed, but how it was reacted to. i think "holly"'s grief was pretty true to form, and actually so were her friends' responses, but i couldn't quite figure out what the movie was saying about it all. were her friends right that she just needed to move on? the thing with her mom and "this is not healthy" blahblahblah...is it true? when someone dies, is there a timeline to our sadness, and a point when we gotta forget it all and move on?

you can guess the reason i was so conflicted. i know grief... i mean, not a spouse, of course, but he was my dad. i know what it feels like to go through this thing that's complicated and slow-mo and frustrating. i know what it's like to not know what to say to your friends and how to go on living a "normal" life. but i really felt like the movie was on the side of her friends and family, pushing the "time to move on" theme. i dunno, maybe i'm just extra sensitive to the grief-thing right now.

as far as moving on, etc., no one can tell you how to do it right. there is no right. just personal experience, i guess.

so here's the part to which i would hate for you to take offense. where is everyone? i know i'm not a phone person, and i never have been, but i could use some support here. a text, an email, just something to know people are still out there thinking about me. my very closest friends have let me down in the last [nearly] six months with their lack of involvement. i know life is busy and it goes on and all that. i know. and i'm not mad, just sad. my dad's dead, ya know? doesn't that warrant a check-up every other week or so? i hate needing people. i hate that selfish feeling...like "where are you people and don't you care?" 'cause i know they care. i know, know, know they care so much. and i should be the last person to talk, 'cause when am i ever "there" for people? but it hurts anyway.

and what about those people who have been there? the people who really "rose to the occasion" and have been kind and comforting and have not "forgotten" me? i just look right over them in my selfishness. thanks to you guys. you really do mean the world to me...for just being there, and for understanding that this thing is going to be tough for me for a very long time, and there is no "just moving on."

anyway, i really am sorry for my selfishness. i really hope i didn't hurt anyone's feelings with this post.

hearts will break

Today is a week away from my 25th birthday. Birthdays have never really been a huge deal in my family…I mean, we’ve always celebrated and had a cake and all that yummy goodness, but we never went over-the-top with presents or spent tons of cash on parties, that kind of thing. I can think of at least two instances in which my parents actually forgot my birthday until that evening or the next day. Sad at the time, but humorous now. All I’m saying is birthdays (and really all holidays) just aren’t made into major ordeals around our house.
So I should be fine, right? I mean, I’m turning 25 in a week, and just ‘cause my mom will be out of town, doesn’t mean anything. Birthdays aren’t that big, right? But I’m so ridiculously hurting. I get choked up every time I think about next week. My sister’s going to come up and spend the day with me, but that night…I can already see it, the moment I’m going to have in my bed trying to sleep. All alone in the big house, turning a monumental age, and most of all without my daddy. I don’t know why birthdays have suddenly turned into such a big deal. I could almost ask my mom not to go on her trip! I won’t, of course, ‘cause I don’t do that kind of thing, and she has to go, it’s for her business. But man, it’s hard.
I keep asking myself, “What’s your DEAL? Dad rarely even bought you a present on his own!” But it’s like I keep picturing all the times he did. And all the cards he signed over the years. He always wrote such beautiful things. Once he gave me this little blue suitcase, big enough for jewelry…more like a purse. It was terribly ugly, and even more nonfunctional than unattractive, but he picked it out himself, so it always meant a lot to me. One year he even bought me this ring he saw me admire at a store! It was under ten bucks, but the fact that he remembered me commenting on it and went back to purchase it meant the world to me. The stones fell out soon after, I’m sure, but I wore it ‘til it fell completely apart.
A few years ago, my mom dad and I and their pastor and his wife from Estes Park went to a concert together in the town where I lived (about an hour and a half away from them). It was shortly after my 22nd birthday, and my mom asked I was going to drink a beer with the guys. My dad was shocked that I was already old enough to drink. He really thought I was still 20 or younger! I mean, I’m sure if he’d thought about it he would have come up with my real age, but I was just his little girl.
God, I miss my dad. Why does it just kill me some days/hours/moments, and not others?

R-rated. For some adult language.

another day, another blog. two in a rowsies. that's pretty good.

i've been f*ing grumpy today. me and X kinda listened to an anger song today, and it was good, and it helped for a moment, but now i'm just pissed off. not at anyone, just everything. life's a drag sometimes. and it can't be fixed, either. again with the magic formula bullshit. it's just bullshit. not just the feel-good stuff, but the christian stuff, too. like...follow these ten steps and you'll be the perfect christian. and when you're the perfect christian, then everything will just feel right, and be right.

it's always about the fucking feelings. if you aren't feeling right, you're doing something wrong. well, i rarely fucking feel right. and sure, i'm doing a lot wrong, like saying the f-word TWICE, but i'm doing one or two things right, too...the things that should "count," but don't seem to.

i know a lot of my anger has to do with my dad dying, cause he was brilliantly special to me, and i can't think of a single good reason for him to be gone now. he was so true, ya know? he never lied or betrayed or deceived. he just existed, and he knew he was relatively scummy and useless (compared to Christ). he NEVER tried too hard, and he didn't even have it in 'im to pretend like he knew it all...or much of anything. as much as he was a blue-collar worker, he was a blue-collar christian. the only thing he knew for sure was that God loved him, and he was perfectly at peace with that.

peace is....well, i wanna say "another bullshit phenomenon," but i know i only want to say that because at this point, it just doesn't exist in my soul adequately. but i do chock a lot of these "christian" terms up to vocab and jargon...or at least how we've been defining them for the last, i dunno, 1500 years..? not like i'm some undiscovered genius on biblical theory, but i am an english major...and words are entirely magnanimous to me...so when i hear these words thrown around like "peace" and "joy" and all that other church-camp, floaty-in-the-clouds, goodygoodygumdrops, ain't life grand nonsense, i get all snobby and withdrawn.

i miss being six, when all the world made sense because there was no thinking involved. no theory. no philosophy. things just "were." simplicity. i miss my dad.

blah, blah, blah; feelin' like a b* tonight (to a snazzy tune)

so...obviously it's been awhile since i've "posted"...i seemed to have skipped the entire month of march, but i assure you - nothing terribly worth mentioning, anyway. and there's not now, either. i was just on looking at beautiful haylee ray, and thought i'd go ahead and write something.

things are fine. still don't really know how to answer that question when people ask. i think i'm doing well! and not, "...considering." i really am just doing well. life goes on when one life goes on, if you know what i mean. i miss my dad a lot these days, and yet, i don't think or feel like it's really sunk in. maybe it never does. grief is so strange and so unexplainable. it is, unfortunately, something you can never prepare yourself for, and something you really can't experience "the right way." i mean, i'm no psychologist, and i know there are "bad" ways to grieve, like...hurting other people somehow, sure, but it's not like i'm never going to drown my sorrows in booze, and like i'm going to talk about shit all the time to "get it out."

okay, so maybe i'm kinda pissed at the whole thing. the whole grieving thing, i mean. you're sort of raised (not by parents, more like...everything around you), to think and believe there's this magical formula for grief, and when you do it right, it won't hurt so bad. and there's this list of shoulds and shouldn'ts, but the only people who push those things on you are the ones who've never lost a parent, or a sibling, or a significant other. you guys who have lost someone that close to you...you know what i mean. not like we're this exclusive group, but you at least know the pain of loss PLUS the pain of having absolutely no idea what to do about it. cause you're supposed to "fix" everything that's "broken," right? -sigh-

sorry. again, i'm not trying to exclude anybody here. and NOT trying to say, "if it hasn't happened to you, you're just ignorant." cause that would be way lame. and just plain incorrect. some of my most empathetic, closest friends who have said the most perfect things haven't lost anything or anyone. so yeah. don't get me wrong here. i'm really just venting. :)

sloppy. that's what this is. :) anyway, pray for me if you think about it. i have to figure out this job -slash- life thing. oh, and don't ask me how my mom's doing.....if you want to know, ask her yourself: seamsndreams at yahoo dot com.

love!

two

today's the two-month mark of my dad's death. weird. what's the most weird is that i can't cry. i miss him constantly, and i have moments of terrible sadness, but not a tear will fall! i may have to watch The Notebook just to open the floodgates. i can always count on that movie. crazy, huh? that i have to watch a movie to bring on the tears. you'd think i would just be able to think about my dad and they'd come. i think it's a physiological problem. and what a strange one.
i miss him so much.

waves, reality, and missing my dad

my "breakdowns" seem to have lessened to about once a week now, if that. :) weird how something can get easier and harder at the same time. it's getting easier just living every day life...doing the things i've always done...coming home to his house and not thinking only of him being gone. but it gets harder, too. imagining my future is more painful than it's ever been. i hate the thought of living another FIFTY years without my dad around. i don't know what i'll feel when i meet a guy i think i might want to marry, and i can't get my dad's opinion. and someday if i have kids.... that's the worst one. my dad was going to be such a perfect grandpa. he was going to be a perfect everything.
i went through about a week, and this pops up again some days, when i could not and can not look at recent pictures of him. which is weird, because the very first thing i wanted to do when i flew in from lubbock that terrible day was stare at a picture of his face. but on these days when it hurts too much, i catch his face out of the corner of my eye and i just have to walk away. it's such a handsome face. such a kind, predictable face. show me any picture of him, and i'll tell you what he's thinking.
amber gave me the most beautiful picture of him and me for christmas. she framed it in a white frame (imagine...me and white...huh), and it's just perfect. it's from mother's day (2007), our families went out to eat together, and she had a new digital and was snapping photos all afternoon. i thank God with all my heart that this picture exists. it's just so "Ed."
i miss my dad so much. it's weird, but i get a craving to say that out loud. everyone i see, i want to tell them, "i miss him so much." i don't say it very often because i get choked up when i do. and i don't like to say it to my mom 'cause i'm afraid of making her [more] sad. but sometimes i just need to say it. actually, all the time. strange how just saying a few words strung together can bring relief.
i was at the bottom of our stairs the other day, on my way up to my room, doing nothing in particular, and a "wave" hit me. it happens every day-ish. just this sensation of, "he's really gone." it literally takes my breath away for a split second. it doesn't make me cry, or even tear up, it's just a flash, then it's gone. and as silly as it sounds, i like those waves. they bring reality...and they bring me his face, which i must never forget.
like i ever could.

daddy issues

after all this with my dad, i have an even greater urge to go back to childhood. i've always had that urge, at least since being "grown up," and even when i was little i was so sad about having to grow up someday.
so now that my daddy's gone, it's kinda like i'm trying recapture anything that reminds me of him. and since i spent 24 years as his little girl, most of my memories of him involve just that...being little. i have the strange desire to play house and barbies and read old stories. i want to climb in trees and draw stick figures on scrap paper, and eat cheetos and sour gummy worms for every meal. and yeah, i've pretty much been wishing i could do all those things for the last several years, but the burning in my heart to be young and free again is only amplified by the loss of my dad.
i miss him so much. so much that sometimes i can't even believe he's really gone. it's like he's on a really long trip or something, and when he gets back (in ten or twenty years), he'll give me a gigantic hug and let me crawl into his lap, while he sings me Jellyman Kelly in his best james taylor impression...which is always nearly identical to the real thing.
is it wrong to feel that? i keep thinking, "i have to get this engrained in my stubborn head. he's gone, and he's never coming back to this world." his hugs, and his smelly feet, and his wild eyebrows, and his perfect laugh, his sarcasm, his singing and his voice are all gone. no more. i hate thinking about those things. that they're gone, i mean. and people keep saying stuff like, "all of that will live on in you and your mom and brother!" i appreciate so much that people are trying to comfort, but those things, his laugh and his voice...they were individual to him. and even though we can mimic, and recall, and remember and honor for the rest of our lives, merely talking about the very physical and physiological parts of my dad will never be enough.
i could go on and on and on and talk about him and my broken heart for hours or days, but i have a feeling that's not what makes the healing happen. i have a feeling the only, and i mean only thorough healing we can get at all when we lose someone we love so much, must come directly from God alone.
so here's to prayer and petition. here's to joy that comes in the morning...and here's to those who mourn. for we will be comforted.

derailed

i already wrote a blog today, but since it was 2:26am at my last post, it really counts as yesterday. anyway, i want to try to redeem the horrific sadness of my last entry. i guess they're all sad, but that one was written in the midst of heavy tears, so when i read it, it just seems more heavy than the others. or something.
i like writing every day. or most days. and since few of you even read this, i feel even better about opening up. which i guess is rare for me. sharing my feelings isn't my strongest attribute. i'm a pretty private person, so i struggle with letting go the intimate details of the things happening in my heart. but when something this huge and life-changing presents itself, i can put aside the feelings of inadequacy and just share.
i can't say enough how much i miss my dad. every day it gets a little harder, 'cause the shock's wearing off and reality's pouring its blunt little self all over the floor in front of me. i've never been the type to live one day at a time, and while all this inspires me to do so, it's still hard not to envision my future and just how lonely it's going to be without my Pops.
i just kinda lost my train of thought and all ability to keep typing with any flavor. i'm going to bed and tomorrow i'm going back HOME! (i've been house-sitting.)
thank you God for holding me when i need it most.

just...

i miss him so much. it's torture, all the things you think after someone you love dies. i just keep wishing i could have one last hug. like that would ever be enough. how can he really be gone?