Dear Friend,

Tonight’s the show! “She Loves Me” opens in Kilbourn at 7:30 tonight… my cast goes tonight, and again on Saturday. I am SO EXCITED.

Jacob was just over (he brought his accordion….) and we ran through our scene together. I’ve discovered that is one of the best colleagues a girl could ask for. I’ve treated him as a combination of great friend, accompanist, therapist, drinking buddy, and partner in crime. But most of all, we’re collaborators. Having the opportunity to build a real relationship with someone from artistic groundwork has been a huge privilege of participating in this show, and I think it gives a great deal to our onstage chemistry as well as on a personal level. I’m extremely grateful, not to mention proud of and excited for the work we’ve done.

There are a lot of other things for which I can be grateful today. My mom and grandmother are coming to see the show. I’m in really good voice today. I belted an Eb (what the hell, actually). My hair looks nice. I’m not as socially awkward as I could be. I’ve had coffee. I’m not sick (knock on wood). I am surrounded by some of the most talented, kindest, extraordinary people on the planet. And I am so happy.

I have a lot to be thankful for.

“I can’t lose you too”

I have needed to blog for a very long time.

There are so many things I feel like I need to say: about life, about family, about romance and love and sex and other things. I think constantly, about concepts that are bigger than I am, and when I go to put them into words, they become about as easy to catch as vapor.

About life
I guess I’ve come to terms with the fact that it doesn’t do to be terrified of dying all the time. I think about dying: how one dies, the possibilities, probabilities, likelihoods. Serial killing’s the most colorful, but there’re random acts of violence, gunshots, stabbings, poisoning, and anthrax. And sheer accidents. But it really doesn’t do much for peace of mind or happiness to dwell on these things. If it happens, it happens, and I guess I’d just have to hope that my family would celebrate my life instead of mourning my death. I guess I’d want them to do everything they could to live to the fullest and enjoy themselves because there’s no way to tell what could happen.

But I feel like a moron saying that because here I am, not living life to the fullest BECAUSE there’s no way to tell. On a level with something happening to me is if something happened to them. That’s the most horrible thing I can think of in my own limited sphere of terrors on a personal scale. I say it would be on a level with me being gone because if something happened to me I know that my immediate family, anyway, would be heartsick. I know them too well and it would be painful and awful and sad. I would feel like shit and be responsible for their pain. That guilt and responsibility is paralleled by something happening to them. They just need to be safe. Healthy. Happy.

That’s another thing. I feel guilty being happy a lot. Some things are too important for me to be happy all the time. But the repressed happy is making me sad. If that makes sense. All of this worrying is pointless because it’s out of my control. But whose control is it in?

I needed to ask that. I’m not saying that I’ve suddenly turned agnostic or whatever. But I feel like there comes a time in everyone’s life where it needs to be asked, and answered on one’s own terms. I’m asking, and I’m going to have to get an answer for myself, instead of just flopping around searching for some kind of response and taking it from others’ thoughts and ideas.

It’s me from now on. I am sick of saying that my own life and happiness is second to other, bigger issues that I cannot effect. Such as the concern over death. It will happen eventually and I’d be really dumb if I continued to let it loom ominously behind me with it’s ugly, outdated scythe at my neck. I need to let it go, or push it aside. I worry about doing those things to certain aspects of my personality because I don’t want to risk losing my sense of self. But seriously, what self will be left if I spend all of my time stupidly, silently crying over events that haven’t happened yet?

This is going to be lame, but it reminds me of Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye in the series Full Metal Alchemist. They love each other, but she protects him and he has goals that they are both incredibly determined to see through. They never act on their love– they’ve known each other since childhood– because they think they’re never in a position to do so. I think that’s nonsense. If you have something so beautiful and tangible and powerful in front of you, how dare you let it go without a fight?

Riza dies, so that’s the sad ending to that story and also the moral.

I have something so beautiful and tangible and powerful in front of me. If I delude myself into thinking I’m incapable of taking it and making it mine, then I’ve wasted just as much as the characters I adore.

Live for today, we’ll dream tomorrow

I’m motivated.

I’m motivated and I’m cleaning and I’m listening to Anberlin and the Avett Brothers and although I have to go to SA in less than twenty minutes, for once my music is louder than Ms. Next-Door’s and life is good.

Also, there was a little sunshine today (and blue skies <!!!>) so that may be contributing to this “life is good” moment.

OH. And I’m going home tomorrow. Did I mention that? I cannot wait. I really can’t wait. That’s honestly what’s gotten me through this week without freaking out. Ah! I can’t wait. Have I mentioned this already? GOD.

Anyway.

Back to my swiffering, and improvving along with the Avetts’ “Jenny and the Summer Day.”

Just an eighth note of a moment

I’m sitting at my desk right now in my chaotically organized yet still zen-providing pretty space of a room. My hair’s outrageous and I still haven’t taken my scarf off from outside. My left contact is itching and my neck’s regained probably about half of its normal tension already.

But I’m so, so happy.

Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know if I could tell you without gushing about twelve hundred different probable causes. Nothing spectacular has happened (except I have a GREAT second semester schedule, minus the fact that I don’t have any River Campus classes… which is a bummer). I haven’t lost a ton of weight or anything. My sock has a hole in it (I’ve just discovered).

But I am so happy.

Maybe it’s the sunshine. Maybe it’s the sparkling white curtain of snow I walk out in at 830 every morning. Maybe it’s the morning time I currently enjoy; maybe it’s the music. Maybe it’s that I’m finally reconnecting with the self I lost in the shuffle of a new time.

I don’t know. But I’m happy.

Maybe it's because I've been fingerpainting... or maybe the fingerpainting is a result of the happy.

Science that’s double sharped. Oh, and Cheddar Bunnies

There are some things we refuse to let ourselves see, because it hurts too much. Valid observations and clinically correct studies really just make us ache so we don’t focus on massive changes in our lives. For example, I’m sitting here procrastinating and eating Cheddar Bunnies for comfort instead of letting myself feel sad. Or, if I’m being astute, painfully aware of how alone I am and how much I miss the happy things I love about my home and family and friends.

Even the music has a comfort zone it misses. The vanilla chamomile tea with agave nectar during long frigid months in Heather’s classy little apartment are long gone. The summery newness of her little house has faded for me; I don’t see it. I won’t see it, for a good few weeks at the very least. The steadiness, the calm and balance that was my previous instruction has coalesced swiftly into a cacophony of sounds that I can’t quite make out. There are so many, and they’re so fast. I’m expected to teach myself, to some degree. The disciplining is all me.

That has to happen. My mind thinks it, pressures me, but inside I really just want to go home. To the safety of my backyard and living room where so many hours were spent just waiting for this time to be here. Now that it is, I realize everything is different.

And it hurts. The Cheddar Bunnies, while helpful, don’t do as much to smother the throbbing that’s double sharp, lodged right where I breathe and remember I’m alive. I’m alive and I’m in this place that’s unfamiliar. I’m brave. I’ve prayed to be strong. Not wise, not more talented, strong. I need to bend and grow and succeed, not break. I’ve found out that within that strength there’s growing pain. At least I can face it and analyze it and know it for what it is and admit it.

I’m sad.

As Lucy says, "They make you feel good about yourself because it's like you're a meat-eater... But they're organic."

Worrying away: the nonverbal power struggle between me, myself, and God

Self v. self. God's just chillin' somewhere waiting for me to figure it out, I guess

I’m a scaredy-cat. This is just how it is. I’m scared to admit my faith, scared to admit that I might (le gasp) not really be in charge of my existence, scared to think that the control I come to rely on so heavily might be merely a perception. Not real.

Basically I’m scared to admit that I’m a flawed human being that’s not in charge of my life.

This is the biggest thing for me to admit. It’s taken me quite a while to arrive at the admission, too: I’m a control freak. Not because I have a compulsion to lead the way: not at all. On the contrary, I simply don’t want to be seen as weak. I’ve grown up in an atmosphere of strong, confident, vital women. The core people in my life are primarily female, and are all incontrovertably strong in their own way.

I’ve been told, however, that I take after my grandmother, my mother’s mother. We both have the blond hair, love of food (she reins hers in, I don’t), and deeply seated need for peace. She suffered through two divorces and raised three children single-handedly while working full time in order to obtain her calm, her center of balance. So as much as she hated it, she stood her ground for her children. She refused to be run over by others. Now she’s happy.

Me? I’d just as soon give up than fight, but in addition to that Libra-esque desire for balance, I seem to have inherited the moral compass and backbone from my mother. A ruthless sense of justice and equality was bred into my blood; so I’m torn in two. While one half of my heart wants to lay down the sword (or whatever) and stop fighting, the other half will claim fairness. Will demand it, if it’s not given right away.

What to do when two warring halves of myself collide with the idea that I should give my life to God? My selfless and giving nature says, go for it. Just do it, and see where he will take you. You’ve already gotten so far, imagine how much you could grow with a little spoonful of faith. Or more.

The demanding and aggressive section of my brain would like to know what happens when God leaves me again. When he decides to test me again– which I’m positive will happen– and I’m left alone in the mental and emotional darkness that seems to fall on me whenever the glow near my heart fades and takes God’s presence with it. What then? Am I left to resume control until he takes charge again? Or should I lay down arms and be stampeded by whatever until God chooses to remember me once more?

The warrior and the peacemaker in me can’t decide.