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.