Almost FOUR YEARS since my last post! I don't know if anyone stumbles across these words any more. The three of you who used to read it, ten years ago, does it send you an alert when I post? I would probably never remember, but for these times, like today, when I'm working on bills or taxes and happen to look at my bookmarks bar and see that orange and white B. I both enjoy and cringe reading through my old posts. Sometimes I even get misty-eyed. I still miss my dad that much. And I still can't believe the time grows and later this year I'll be saying he's been gone FIFTEEN YEARS. But it does hurt less. Most of the time. 

Anyway. This post is not about my dad. It's not about anything really. It's about me, sitting down at my computer, taking a moment to acknowledge the very centering, almost nostalgic act of writing, typing, sharing my thoughts with the world, albeit a very, very small world of maybe just my current self, and my future self. I do miss writing. I miss creating. I've worked so much these last two years, at the bedside, time has flown at warped-speed, and things that happened in January 2020 happened two lifetimes ago instead of two years ago. I've had no time to write. No energy to write. No desire to write. I've had nothing in me but the robotic stamina to eat-sleep-work for 24 months. I think of nothing but combatting disease and death, convincing friends, family, public of how to stay well, and I can only begin to imagine how many years have been taken off my life by stress and sadness and a variety pack of different kinds of fatigue. 

So this feels good. Sitting at my kitchen table, facing a window full of sunny skies, enjoying the "morning" before I go back to work (tonight), and typing a little. This could be my life. I could give it all up, everything I've built and worked toward at my current place of employment, and travel. I could work 36 hours per week instead of 60 or 80, and spend the other ~50 taking in windows full of sunshine. It's what they would do. My employees who "just have to be selfish right now." I don't know what's right. I don't know if I do the thing that's good for me, but is the potential detriment to several people I really care about, or if I stay where I am and suffer for them, with them, unhappy, but helpful, serving, doing good. 

I don't want to think about that right now. For the first time in a really long time, I'm enjoying myself. Let's not ruin the moment with the thoughts that haunt me all the time. There's plenty of time for that later. 

Hopefully more soon.

Vulner-puke-ability

If you know me at all in a deep way, you know how hard that is.  You know I’m not one to share my feelings, or cry, or show vulnerability.  Or if I do any of those things, it’s in a very controlled environment, in which I only show you exactly what I want you to see.  I guess those who’ve known me the longest and best have seen me vulnerable at one time or another, like when my dad died, but I’d bet they could count on one hand the times they’ve seen me “lose it.”  I’m a very rational person.  I do things with and for reason, and while I pretend to not care what people think about me, I’m in fact thinking about that all the time.  I want people to think certain things of me.  I want them to think I’m intelligent, put-together, responsible, self-sufficient, strong.  I panic inside and endlessly obsess when I perceive someone might think otherwise.  I don’t get embarrassed by spilling coffee on a white shirt, toilet paper on my shoe, or tripping over my own two feet.  But I can.not.handle.it when I misspeak, misinform, or appear weak in any shape or form.  (Except physically…I’m super weak physically, and not at all interested in the gym.)  

I made a sort of “new years resolution” (after the fact) to show more vulnerability.  I want to be ok with not being perfect.  Not just saying, “I know I’m far from perfect!” because that’s my way of controlling the situation.  Letting you know I know I’m not perfect is “strong.”  It doesn’t leave me vulnerable, because it shows I’m wise and together enough to know my own shortcomings.  But it’s not real.  In my heart and in my head I need you to think I’m pretty near perfect.  But I think I’m getting exhausted.  And lonely.  Who really knows me?  Like knows me.   My mom does.  She knows I’m emotional, even moody quite often.  She’s seen me at my worst and my best, and she thinks I’m wonderful (???).  But even her I tend to protect from my weaknesses.  Not as much because I need her to think I’m perfect, but because I feel like I have to be strong for her.  She needs me to support her with some things in her life that bring her down on a regular basis.  I’m 34…I don’t need my mom to keep taking care of me…it’s my turn.  So I don’t break down on her, ‘cause she doesn’t need that.  

What I really want is a husband.  I want someone to come home to, someone to cry to when it becomes beyond what I can hold in.  But how the EFF does a girl like me get involved with someone, when I can’t even “reveal” myself (be vulnerable) with my very best friends?  How do I ever become the kind of person who can share her life with someone?  I guess that’s why I’m trying to be more vulnerable this year.  Trying to cry when I’m really sad, trying to call someone when I really need to hear a human voice.  I’m trying to say what I think and ask questions, even when I’m afraid I’m going to look or sound dumb.  I’m trying not to attempt to control what people think of me, and trying not to let what they might think consume me.  Instead of being strong and independent and pretending like being alone is exactly what I want, I’m trying to just be real and honest and open.  

This is not an easy transition.  I guess changing who you are, or who you’ve maybe been your whole life never is.  Sometimes it doesn’t feel worth it.  Sometimes I just long and pray and hope that Home is right around the corner.  Sometimes it just feels like it’s too hard.  I think that’s why I like being an ICU nurse…the people I see on a daily basis have real, tangible problems.  They’re sick, sometimes close to death, sometimes they even die, and it distracts me from all the inside stuff that doesn’t have a quick-fix.  It distracts me from me.   

I never know how to end these things.  So I guess I’ll go back to the old elementary school formula.  “In conclusion,” I’m working toward vulnerability.  The lack of it is the root of most of my problems in life.  I thank God for revealing this to me at some point recently, because I’m 34 and finally kind of know what I’m working with.  I probably need counseling to build some tools for being able to talk about my feelings, so if you’re the praying kind and you’re reading this, pray that in ultimate vulnerable fashion I would find myself some kind of therapist.  And thanks…cause if you’re reading this, you maybe read those old posts and you probably know me better than most, which makes me feel a lot less alone.  

Dad and life and almost 30

A long time ago, many years in fact, I suffered a deep, suffocating, all-consuming writer's block.  I wanted to write, but I couldn't.  I stared at my computer screen, mind empty of every and all ability to formulate pretty little sentences in order to "express myself."  In those days, writing was important to me...I assume because I had just graduated college with a degree in creative writing...or because I thought that's who I was, a writer...or because my dad died and I thought I was supposed to write all the time instead of keeping my feelings all bottled up.
A year and some months have passed since I wrote on this blog the last time, and I find, instead of a writer's block this go-'round, I have more of a writer's apathy.  I feel kind of "meh" about writing these days. When I start, like right now, I enjoy it reasonably well, but getting to a point when I'm willing to sit down in front of my computer, or even with a pen and paper, takes a lot of energy I find I just don't have.  Life is busy.  Time is precious, and every waking hour I possess already belongs to something else, even if that thing is the TV.  Whether it's because I know now writing is not part of my career path, or because I've grown generally apathetic about a lot things I used to love, writing just does not take precedent in my daily life.  Sometimes I still wish it did.  Sometimes, maybe right now, for instance, I think, "Hmm...I could still be a writer...and really enjoy it..."  But even those flashes of interest dwindle within seconds, like a flame without oxygen to keep it alive.  I'm just...too lazy, I guess.
But since I'm here...right now...for another few minutes, or however long it takes to dispel the so-called wind beneath my little writer's wings, I may as well say a couple of things.  I miss my dad.  Tremendously.  I both love and hate that sticky feeling in my throat and the bottom of my gut that turns on when I see his photographed face or think of his sweet voice.  I love it because I'm actually missing him...which I don't always do anymore, but I hate it because...well...it's not at all a nice feeling.  This ghost of sadness that passes through me ever-swiftly in those moments...it's not a nice ghost, not one I'd recommend, and yet, one I'd like to always keep around.  FIVE years have passed, and now I'm running head-first into my 30th year (or is it 31st?), and all I can think about is that I'll never be 20-something again...and I'm really an adult...and my dad's really still gone.  In the first few weeks after he died, and probably months, I had a recurring thought about this future...the one I'm in now.  I kept thinking, "Someday it's going to have been FIVE YEARS since my dad died...someday it's going to be ten, and twenty, and on and on."  The thought's unbearable, really.  Partly because the first of those monuments has come and gone, partly because the number just keeps on growing, and partly because I don't want to be one of those grown-ups always talking about my ole pops who died when I was practically just a kid, who I just barely remember, and whose memory keeps growing into more and more of a shadow.
This death thing is not at all graceful.  People act like it is...like the memory of a loved one is this sweet song, like a flute at a ballet, that just keeps playing on and on, and someday gently fades into the grey of some magical morning when you wake up and even though that person's still dead, you're all just fine.  I suppose maybe one day I will feel differently about the whole ordeal...I'll be peaceful and wistful and talk about my dad like I would talk about the best ice cream cone I ever had back when I was 10.  Or maybe I never will, and maybe it's because I've got a lot more "dark" in me than normal people, or maybe it's because he really was the best dad/human in the world, or maybe I'm just dramatic and selfish and a touch of crazy.
If you're thinking, "Geez, is she still on that whole dad thing?"  You ought to never read my blog again, because when I do write, once a year, or every year and a half or so, I can almost guarantee it'll be about that whole dad thing.  I knew within days after his death that I would never really be "over it," though lots of folks tried to tell me it would only be a matter of time.  I'll never really be "okay" with my dad's death and absence, but generally speaking, I am okay, of course.  I just really, truly, whole-heartedly wish you knew him like I did.

A Landing, of sorts

It's amazing how much my life has changed and continues to change in four years.  I'm starting to realize how much of the same person I am today as I was in junior high and high school, but of course, I hope, more mature and wiser.  I'm at an age when men and women in the same bracket experience both significant change, and significant sameness.  We're building careers, families, homes, and when someone asks me, "What's new?" I hardly have an answer more profound than a shoulder shrug.  But.  I have changed, and I do change, incredibly, as I really enter into a place and age where and when I'm having greater success becoming me.  In my early twenties, I was so lost, a chronic wanderer.  That vortex seemed so endless, and I couldn't imagine a time when I would finally feel "at home" with whoever that girl is inside me.  Thankfully, I'm arriving there (here) and the two sort of "beings" who used to inhabit this blue-eyed space are reconciling with each other--child and adult meeting in the middle to form who I am.  These changes, these realizations, are the most incredible of my life, next to the moment I knew Jesus.
I often wonder where I would be (developmentally, spiritually, maturity) had my dad not died that early morning four years ago.  I don't like to speculate too much on things I have absolutely no ability to change, or to see clearly, but I wonder if I would still be out there searching so persistently for this "myself" person, had I not been shocked into reality December 6, 2007.  That's the thing about life...you can't ever really know what "would have been," unless you're George Bailey, but I believe it's a very profound thing to let a tragedy change you.  To use a phrase I hate, it's sort of like an "out of body experience," stepping away from yourself and comparing the person you are against the one you were before such an event.  I can't describe it, but, in a way, it's almost like I'm dependent on that tragedy now.  Like when people say, "No regrets!" about their pasts, I think back to four years and 24 hours ago and I don't want to be that young woman anymore.  But to not be her, to be the woman I am now, I had to lose my dad, and though I never thought I'd get here, I'm finally beginning to be okay with that.

I'm here again. Here in the same spot I'm always in after a few months adoring someone new. I can't quite say it's over, because I've only seen four days come and go without his usual affections, but it feels familiar. It feels like all the other times Boys have turned cold, but this might be the first time during which process I can point to no single thing that's led to these tidings.

I will say that this isn't the first time he's made me feel this way. I've felt his distance times before, but never so acutely. I've known him now for four months and the way our relationship has progressed, I don't feel like he should be able to treat me this way anymore. No, he's not my boyfriend; I can make no claim on him, but don't we know each other well enough by now to be honest?

Pray for me, friends. Pray for my wisdom and discernment, but really more for my sadness. Four days and I miss him already. The pangs in my heart grow more painful with each passing moment of his absence.

I did so well in the month of November, keeping on top of my feelings and doings. But I've struggled since to write much, because I'm terribly afraid of jinxing myself. I know that's silly. I know whether I write or not has no influence on what happens around me, but still I fear. If I divulge too much, I'll have to un-divulge it when it's over. And I hate un-divulging. It just seems so...sad.

But I guess I'll say something brief. I've found a very, very special man with whom I'm currently sharing my life. We're not a couple, we're as yet close friends, but it seems to be heading in the direction of something more meaningful. (Not that there's a lot more meaningful than friendship.) I'm being very careful this time...though I think I am every time. But with him, I'm so much more interested in a sort of future. He's wonderfully sweet and kind, creative and so witty. He's tall and handsome, has some beautifully unique features, like 2/3rds of an index finger. He's so far very different from the boys I usually date and I suppose that's a good sign.

But I'm being careful. My heart is as sensitive as it is tough, and I cannot make the usual mistakes with this man. So instead of thinking so very much all the time, I'm just being me. Just living life, taking it all in stride, hoping for the best, and living one day with him at a time. Here's to hope!

I. am. so. boy-crazy. How is it that I've never been in love?! Sometimes I feel like God's protected my heart from all the silliness it seeks after...for one, by keeping me from falling in love, and for two, by keeping boys disinterested in me. That is, at least, what I tell myself. It's God's fault they don't love me. :) I guess boys aren't completely disinterested. That's half the problem. They're really interested! And then...they're just not. I don't get it, ya know? I mean, I'm the same Emily day one to the end. So why do they like me...and then just not like me?

What a life-long mystery. Moments like this, when I'm content and cheerful, and happy to wait for so-called Mr. Right, I can laugh about it. It's a silly little complication in my life, and I'm pretty sure it will all be resolved one day when I meet some sweet, wonderful, honest man who finds my quirky charm endearing.

When I struggle with this thing...this pattern I have with men (or they have with me?), I sit back and think to myself, "Self, could you (I) be happy never getting married?" And I do think I could. Especially now that Baby Chas has entered my world.

I want to get married. I want to have someone significant with whom to share my life, but it's not the thing of my life. It's just a thing. One of many things I'd like to do in a lifetime. But part of me would also like to be "Crazy Aunt Em" who lives all over the world and brings you cool souvenirs, and she's always smiling because she loves her life. And when you ask her (me) why she never got married, she just looks at you shocked and says, "Well! I still have plenty of time, young man!" (Or young woman, if I have a niece someday.)

But I am boy-crazy. I love those boys, all of'em. Perhaps one day I'll really love one of those boys and he'll love me.

One...two...three Old Chubs make a girl honest. 1) I miss the way you kiss, the way you tell me I'm sexy, the way you hold me while we sleep. 2) I wish you would mean to me what I want you to mean to me. 3) I think you're just my friend, until I see you again, then I realise all I want is for you to want me.

I want love. I need love. I need that man to need me the way I know, without a doubt, I need him. But time keeps passing and still he doesn't say, and I know deep down that he doesn't feel that way. This way. The way I feel right now - ready, honest, bound. I am bound. By him, by all hims who have ever been something to me.

Say you need me. Please, dear man, dearest of all dear men, need me now.

Last night was a big revelation to me on why I don't date much. My skin is paper-thin. I went on a date with a guy I'd been in communication with for a few weeks and we were both so excited about getting together, when it actually happened, it wasn't, of course, the violins and fireworks I'd imagined. I do this every time. I work myself into a frenzy, telling myself over and over, "Calm down, take it in stride, do not get your hopes up." But it doesn't matter. My hopes are always sky-high, even if I tell myself I have no expectations.

I want love. I desperately want love, and while I try on these very different, all uniquely special men, I can't help but hope every single time that this may be the man who loves me. At the end of all these experiences, I tell myself, "You just need to do it more...date more...grow thicker skin." But I can't help but wonder who I would be with thicker skin. Is it better to harden yourself, prepare for the worst, not let anyone in until they've proven something significant, or is it better to fall in love with everyone and be wounded with every experience?

I can't decide. I know there must be a middle-ground. And I know that I'm not completely to the one extreme, as most of these incurred wounds are barely skin deep. They heal pretty quickly, usually. But they are painful, still, and I feel like I could probably do without them.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, would it be better for me to change my heart, to harden that skin, load on the experience, and try to get hurt less, or to change my behaviors, date less often, be more choosey, keep my heart to myself.

Again, there's got to be a happy medium. I've got to find it, too, before I get hurt worse than I yet have.

Amazing what time and life can do to a wound. I have no doubts that they can almost completely heal. But I still say only "almost" because I so much believe some wounds can never completely heal.

My wide open gushing wound from the death of my father is a wound that will never, in another 60-70 or 80 years, will never entirely heal. If I live to be 84, I am positive that wound, however minute and scarred, will still gently throb on the 60th anniversary of my dad's death.

But here I am, almost three years later, and the intensity of that particular wound has bayed to a slow ache. If this wound were a gash, it would be much like a week after stitches. The threads are falling out, no longer needed to keep the wound closed, but a sharp blow on just the wrong spot could undo every stitch in the flash of a second.

I miss my dad like crazy. I miss every little thing about him. But I'm finally beginning to accept his absence, and perhaps becoming able to carry on with life joyfully and with purpose.

Seems strange, though, as time passes, new hurts come to life from this wound. On my way out of town this afternoon, I thought about my mom, and I saw her pain in a different light. Rather suddenly my heart broke for her. Her wound is completely different than mine, and for the last three years, I haven't been able to empathize with that pain. I still can't really, as I've not yet been in love, but I guess as my own healing process begins to really show some effect, I'm able to see outside myself much more clearly. And I see her in pain - an incredible pain I'm not sure I would be able to bear. I'm not entirely sure she's able to bear it, but I assume God will see that she does.

I pray with my whole heart that I'll be able to empathize with her now. That I will ache for her pain, instead of being annoyed by it. That I will see ways I can take care of her, and do my part to patch the wound.

I just finished reading a friend's blog about life's small (and grande) pleasures. Her list was full of sweet-nothings, things you or I might never think special, but in her words I could feel the warmth of her soul as she described a few of her favorite things.

I thought about my own list, my list of tiny happies, and though I struggle day to day to find meaning in this menial life, I know in my heart my list is so long it's nearly endless. I both love and hate my life. When that exact thought first popped into my head, for a flash of a half-second, I thought, "How can that be?! Why am I so crazy?" But it's not crazy at all. It's really quite simple: I'm human. Every moment of my existence is a battle between two sides of myself. I have the most beautiful, insightful, pleasurable side who is a child of God, who is secure in her heavenly future, and loves this earth with every ounce of gusto because it is a precious gift from my Lord.

But simultaneously, I am a fleshly being. I am one who hates and loathes and despises everything that is not Heaven. I long with all my heart to be there, to be Home as I so often reference it, and because my heart already belongs there, a place of utmost beauty and endless joy, this side of me hates this world and its robbing of my true life.

...

Rhetorical questions.

I got an apartment today. I'm moving into a really nice little condo with one of my very best friends, and it's the deal of a lifetime. Why, then, am I so sad? I'm sitting here in my room (at my mom's house), realising these are my last moments here...my last nights...last days. I love this house. This house is the first place in so many years where I found home. So much has happened in the last eight years, some of it within the walls of this very house, and my heart breaks to leave it.

I remember a similar feeling when my parents sold our house in Dallas, the house where I grew up, more or less. This dull aching inside, accompanied by a knotted stomach, signifying the end of a very meaningful history. For the Dallas house, it was 12 years living with the three people in the world I love the absolute most. We were a small family, complete with various cats and a dog, sometimes a gerbil or two, and every minute spent in that sweet little home added something priceless to the woman I am today. I remember that house perfectly. I remember ever corner, every tree, every unsuccessful attempt to grow grass, every game of detective, every birthday party, and every slammed door from that red-brick house on Applegate. It felt, and sometimes still feels like a part of my family.

I know that's cheesy. I know it's silly to love a building that much, to make it that meaningful to myself and be so sad when it's gone. But it's kind of like the neat little package that bundles up all my most pleasant memories, and what do I do with them when it disappears? One by one, they start to disappear, too, little pieces of me, memories of things and people and a beautiful life just begin to face away with time.

This house is much the same as that little red one on Applegate, but its contents are so much more full and real, because I've been an adult all these eight years. Ramshorn is a perfect home. I can see the famous Long's Peak from my kitchen window. I keep my window open year round, because the air's so fresh, I hate to miss a second of it. Elk and dear and coyotes and bears traipse through our "yard" like we're in the middle of the zoo, and no matter what time of year, how hot or cold, this house always stays the perfect temperature. The part I love most about the house itself is its location. Besides all those things previously mentioned, it's also perfectly situated on the edge of Estes, so that in the middle of the night, you can't hear a blessed thing, and not much more during daylight hours. I've grown to love the stillness out here.

The memories here, of course, besides being more mature, are different in other ways, too. This house was my dad's. He touched every surface in this house, every plane; he died here. My dad's life ended right here, on the middle level bathroom floor. But in some ways, my dad's life also began in this house. He was a new man when he and my mom moved here in 2002. He was the same Mr. Ed, loving and kind, gentle and humble, but he was different, too. He liked his jobs, he got my mom all to himself, he made incredible friends, and every single day he got to wake up to mountains and that sweet fresh air I love so.

Every moment I spent with my dad (and mom) in this house was perfect and priceless. The walls, if they could, would speak of the love that passed here, and would whisper stories of that happy little family from Dallas, Texas who planted here, grew here, and ultimately left here.

That is why my heart breaks.

Tomorrow is my dad's birthday. He would be 55 this year. How slowly and yet how fast has time passed me by since December 6, 2007. Two and a half years sounds so short, sounds like just yesterday, but it feels so long, so very very long to live without seeing my dad.

But what a man. What an extraordinarily kind, humble, gentle-spirited man, my dad. When I think about my life and what I want out of it, I'm tempted to say, "I just want to do something to make my dad proud." But my dad was, interestingly enough, proud of me. He loved me a lot, beyond all reason. I don't mean to be self-deprecating when I say "oddly enough." It's not that I've led a terrible life, of which I'm ashamed, but I've certainly done enough in my young 27 years to cause him disappointment. And sometimes he was disappointed, saddened by the silly, self-destructive choices I have such a tendency to make, but he understood. He knew just exactly what it was like to be human, to have two choices before you, and to choose the very obvious mistake. He knew that I had done just that, and that I would continue to do so, 'til the day I die. He even knew that I would sometimes disappoint him, make him sad, make him mad, choose poorly. And he would always let me. And he would always, always tell me he loved me. Not just tell me, but convince me, too, with those honest, tender eyes.

What a beautiful man, my dad. Happy birthday, Dad. Can't wait to see you again.

Strange night. Will I be glad in the morning that I slept alone? I guess. I don't feel anything. Strange night. I'm always different than who I thought I would be. I don't like me, but I think I really wouldn't have liked the one I thought I'd be. Maybe we'd both be okay and tragic in our own ways. Strange night.

I'm consistently surprised by life. By its variety. I can't believe I'm allowed to be this one. All those years of believing in a life so different than this present one. I still believe in a certain love. I still believe in him. I believe desperately in his grace and love...his kindness and mercy toward me. That I can live this life, a life I never thought I would live, and yet be his still.

Strange night.

I don't feel, and yet I feel all in one. Feeling is a beautiful thing, and in these moments when I get to feel it without sadness or pain or regret, I can't help but believe in that certain love. Because my mind, even now, even with this, goes to love. And his, undying, for me. A love I cannot doubt because I've seen it in the face of my own flesh-and-blood father.

Strange night.

Why I Like Windows

I have a bit of a "thing" for windows. I made a window picture frame once, painted it maroon and hung it on my office wall when I lived in Salt Lake City. Anytime I see a framed-out box, I see a window. I always keep my bedroom window open, and perhaps I love the story of Peter Pan so adoringly much because he enters through the window, much as I wish I could.

Windows to me symbolize fresh air. Not just fresh air in the literal sense, though I do love and always long for fresh air. Fresh air to me is the ability to take in the wide world around and outside myself. The ability to stop everything, look outward, look forward, and just breathe, forgetting every other nonessential task but that life-giving one of taking breaths in, and letting them out.

Windows are like small reminders of freedom. Every little thing I desire is out there waiting for me, and all I have to do is look out the window. They are openings to new worlds, new adventures.

I've been thinking about my dad a lot lately. Thinking about him has generally tapered off a bit in the last six months or so, but for some reason, the last couple of weeks have been particularly saturated. I both love and hate to look at pictures of him. I'm not sure what to think anymore when I see his face. Part of him has become so fictional--as if he never really existed but as a lovely figment of my imagination. Of course I know that's not true, but this is a battle raging between head and heart. The head knows the truth: he was around for 24 years (of my life), and now he's not. But the heart knows its own awkward reality: if he had been here, he should still be here. So I'm in a topsy-turvy whirlwind of this strange inability to understand...even though I do understand in most senses.

I'm very good at pushing things out of my mind when I need to. Like when something is too painful to think about, I think of something else. But that gift-curse is less forward than it used to be, and now I'm having a hard time blocking out the hard times. I miss my dad in so many ways different than before...different than two years ago. But in some ways still the same. The one that gets me most is the truth that this is permanent. Two years and almost five months later and he's still gone...and in another two years, and another ten, and twenty more after that, my dad will still be gone. Another one of those dualistic certainties - I know, but I don't know.

There's no real way to fix this, though I think that's for what I keep hoping. No amount of therapy or drugs will make me okay with my dad's never coming back. Maybe time will help me adjust, accept, move on, but nothing in the world will ever be able to take away the pain. I will always hurt for the loss of my dad, and I will never be the same person I was December 5th of 2007, the day before he left. Death does not work that way on your heart when it takes someone you love so deeply. It doesn't allow you to become whole again...to stop missing that person...to forget how different life is without him.

I don't mean to say I'll never be okay. I'll be okay, and to most degrees, I'm already okay. Really, what I need to find now is the courage to accept that the hole will always exist. The place where my dad used to reside in my heart will always be painful and tender. And that that's acceptable. Too, that if, for the rest of my life, I have these aches and doubts and moments of stand-still, I'm okay.

One of the most exhausting things I've experienced in life is to be pulled in two very different directions. I think, too, as Christians, this is an almost never-ending battle...never-ending, until the End. (An End to which I look forward with most anticipation.) My flesh, versus my spirit--a battle God promises us, but even with the guarantee is made no less difficult.

I already battle a never-resting mind. Even in my sleep I dream long, detailed, decision-rampant dreams; I get no breaks from my over-active mind. I don't say this as a complaint, necessarily. More just a statement of fact to paint a picture of the way I'm pulled every which way, every day.

I love shoes. I love clothes. I love fashion and looking good and dressing up. So I spend time maybe once or twice a month looking at my favorite websites at inexpensive clothes; I stick all the things I 'can't live without' in my shopping cart, and when I'm finished looking through every page at all the things I love (tops, shoes, bags, and necklaces), I go back through my shopping cart and pick a few things to actually buy. So I guess that's not a horrible practice. I don't spend hundreds of dollars a month on cute clothes...but I would like to. I would like to have a room-sized closet, wall-to-wall filled with beautiful things (very well organized). I would love to have a shoe wall-- a wall with ceiling-high shelves and row after row of glamorous heels.

But while I'm sitting here dreaming of said closet, I can't help but frown upon myself and these silly moments of flesh-relapse. While I sift through pages and pages of aesthetically pleasing attire, I feel a gnawing somewhere deep in my heart that tells me, "But this isn't what you were made for." (Can you believe my conscience ends sentences in prepositions?) My spirit is committed to something else. I don't want to say "greater," because that's not fair, and awfully judgmental, to people who don't have the future desires I have. So it's not "something greater," it's just something very different, on a personal level, that my spirit and I know, and have known, I've been committed to for a very long time.

This commitment has something to do with life being ever-short-- a brief and tiny flash of time spent here, and what I do with that little time. I'm still not sure what I believe as for purpose. Does God birth us for something specific, or do we assign our own? Either way, I'm to the same conclusion that my life is not about fancy clothes and shoes and shiny necklaces, but is far more about helping to give meaning to the lives of others. Not that a person can't do both, but I don't believe I can, because the shoes and the people are two very great loves for me-- loves that/who are at a constant battle for my affection. And because of this battle, because I can't seem to make room for both, I must prioritize. And people always, always come before things.

People are beautiful, and tender, and broken, and often unloved, and so they need my love, my care, concern, and attention. I could wear cute shoes and attend to hurting people. I could. But I can't. I want to love people who ache for love, and they don't need me to look any certain way. They just need me. My kindness or generosity won't be extended by a pretty blouse, but it could, in some circumstances, be limited. And if I'm truly going to devote my life to practically loving unloved people, how can I carry on in life with even the tiniest limitation on that love?

Anyway, as usual toward the end of my ramblings I'm getting muddled. But I write these things for me, anyway, and I think I've said to myself what I need to say.

:)

So we all know I have issues. Commitment issues, lazy issues, procrastination issues...now daddy issues. But I've always had boy issues most of all (duh, right?). So I'm in this situation and I don't know what to do with myself. Well, ok, I know what to do. Walk away of course. Not care, of course. Forget about him, of course. But I'm no good at those things! Really, really no good.

So this boy. He drives me crazy when I'm with him. I mean, literally, all I think about is, "Oh m'word, is this guy for real?" He's so...self-absorbed. Not really in a cocky way; I don't think he thinks incredibly highly of himself...but he's ignorant of other's feelings. But we have so much fun anyway. I should qualify that, I suppose, because we don't seem to connect at all until we're drinking beer. It doesn't even have to be multiple beers, just enough that we're both relaxed. He seems to care more for people after a good beer. Or something? Oh who knows.

So he's incredibly, incredibly attractive. I'm talking, model-in-a-magazine attractive. He has, in fact, modeled for a magazine, but he's totally embarrassed by it, and never wants to do it again. He's rugged, tall, built, has a smile that could stop traffic (at least female traffic at a mall or something), and beautifully intense eyes. He's not a jerk in the usual sense...he's actually very nice. Very, very friendly and outgoing. Knows no stranger, all that. Oh, perhaps I should mention the dimples. Really, added up together, it's just not fair. To anyone. No one should be so pretty and not gated into Hollywood or something. I don't want to see someone that good looking out on the street in my neighborhood. It's not right.

So anyway. I hang out with the guy once every couple months or so, and I have yet to understand our interactions. He calls me beautiful and sexy, and to put it bluntly, he wants to sleep with me. So I guess he finds me attractive..?? But I know, really, really know, I would never, ever date him. Oh never, never. It makes me shutter a little bit to imagine such things. But I still want to be around him. I still want him to want me. He's by no means chasing me...he doesn't call often (I never call him), and he never makes advanced plans. Like, "Well, you wanna hang out next week, too?" Ha. No. So maybe it's the mystery (together with the dimples, of course), that I can't resist. I keep spending time and energy on this fellow. Granted, I limit our time to beer time, 'cause it's practically painful hanging out with him drinkless.

So what do I do? I know, I know: forget him. Move on. Et cetera, Et cetera, whatever. If it were that easy, we wouldn't have a romance movie genre at all. Oy. Somebody tell me something really wise. Something really smart that snaps me out of this entanglement. Bah!

Things I already know:

-He doesn't really care about me.

-You can never trust a pretty boy.

-Don't have sex with him. (This is not a problem. And a bit of a funny story.)

-Forget about him.

-Move on.

-Don't answer his calls.

-Don't answer his texts.

-Talk to him about how you feel. (That's never going to happen. Ever.)

I love him so endlessly, this Baby Chas. He is all perfection and all joy, and he is a glorious picture of God's grace; he is truly a gift. He doesn't seem real, and I can hardly believe he's here, with us...for us...for the rest of what time our God gives us all.

I still ache for my dad. There's no "but." There's no, "but having Chas makes my dad's absence more bearable," because it doesn't. He is a new piece of my heart; he'll never be replaced, but in turn, cannot replace. My dad should be here for this. He should be here to hold him, wide-eyed and tearful, looking into that sweet new face and promising Chas, and the rest of us, a beautiful, peaceful, perfect future.

I want so badly for the one life to make the pain of the lost one less. I want so badly for Chas's birth to be so profound and so life-altering, that losing my dad is a shadow of a stabbing memory. But it's not. Perhaps I'm let down by that.

I still thank God relentlessly. For both one and the other, in the same breath, and without pause. I thank God for the 24 years with one, and the 24 hours with the other. I thank God for a beating, feeling heart, that I may feel so acutely the pain of the loss of the one, because without this intense pain, I don't believe I would be able to feel this intense joy, however separate. I thank God that he made me so capable of love.

Suddenly, I have passion. Suddenly, I feel like I've woken up. I feel like I've been sleeping for so long. For years. Forever. I want to be drastic. I want to do something severe; something that will forever change me. I want to sell everything I own, pay off my debt, and move somewhere. A place where I might help someone. I don't want to want anymore. I want to be emptied of *things and refilled with passion and love and tenderness. I want a fire that never slows, that burns red and blue. Flames that stretch and lick and glow. I want the fire to consume me at this very hour, and only with time grow and widen and burn all the more.

I've always known I'm different. I've always known I'm made, designed, fashioned for something hard and wearying and unjust. I've always known I was intended for this wild fire, this wild love, and a wild ability to, like fire, expand and move and grow and change directions at the slightest breeze. I am a wild creature. And I feel as though I have finally been set free.

It doesn't matter where I begin. What I sell first, or how I sell it. Just that I do begin. That I, being set free, release this wild desperation to do something more. It's time.