Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Ring the Bells

Find the words that make it right again
Calling birds help you make it through the night
It's just enough to find a way to open up once again
And learn to take all the beauty that's inside

Well ring the bells that lead you home
Cause the only truth I've ever known
Is that nothing ever hurts us more than love
So circle up your best friends
And we'll celebrate the way it ends
At least we live tonight
At least we live tonight

Scream out loud
Until you feel again
And hear the sound of how to heal an aching heart
And those that know you most
Can help you to live again
So keep the close
As you're making your new start

Well ring the bells that lead you home
Cause the only truth I've ever known
Is that nothing ever hurts us more than love
So circle up your best friends
And we'll celebrate the way it ends
At least we live tonight
At least we live tonight

The day you finally turn to dust
And finally hear your name
Brings colors that will never fade away
Sometimes the best in all of us
Can still break down and still give up on love
But it's never gone

Well ring the bells that lead you home
Cause the only truth I've ever known
Is that nothing ever hurts us more than love
So circle up your best friends
And we'll celebrate the way it ends
At least we live tonight
At least we live tonight 

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

rambling

I just closed everything I had up and going. Facebook, blogs, two emails, yada yada yada. I've needed this. This chance to take a break. I feel like I've been so busy doing nothing that I haven't actually taken the time to do nothing.

To sit down and sort out some of my thoughts. Jumbled, crazy thoughts.

***

I took photos for my cousin's wedding shower about three weeks ago. It was fun, in a crazy, new, intimidating sort of way. I am definitely not a people photographer, and I thought it was just due to lack of practice.

But I got home and was just dragging my feet in every way possible on getting the photos edited and out to my family. I finally did it, and got them done yesterday. It felt so good to be done. But then when I got my camera out, with pictures of flowers, and a ripening strawberry, and a ladybug, I felt so much happier.

It wasn't that I was burned out on editing photos, or just photography in general, it's just that the people photos aren't where I am happy. The macros, the shots of little things, that's my comfort zone. But also so much more because it's where I can relax, and feel confident. Where I'm happy in the process and in the final product.

***

I'm listening to Mumford & Sons.

My favorite quote is from one of their songs: "your soul you must keep totally free".

***

After writing posts like this, it is so tempting to go back and hit the delete button. It would be so easy to pretend that it never existed. To hide my scars and the scarier, darker bits back into the recesses of my messy closet. But they do exist, and I'm chosing to believe that by sharing them, they aren't quite as scary. By putting them out into the world, they lose some of their power over me.

I'm chosing to fight the feelings of inadequacy, or what I feel will be judgement coming from other people. This is my space. Mine. And it is a place where I can be myself, the dark and light.

***

I'm on Facebook. I finally gave in. I'm still figuring out what all it will allow me to do, and what I don't want it to do. There are so many people coming out of my past, saying hi, asking how I am. It's weird, but also kind of cool. I just wish Facebook wasn't so convinced I should be friends with my ex-best friend.

Believe me, Facebook, I tried.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Weekly Winners


I am still feeling sort of swamped in photos, but I guess that's what happens when you take a bunch and then don't do anything with them for two weeks. It would be stretching it to say that these are from the past week; more like they are the ones I haven't dealt with for the past almost-three weeks, and so they have ended up here.







Thursday, June 16, 2011

Pain

Why is it that my memories of physical pain are gone, while the emotional pain remains burned into me?

I can't tell you how much it hurt, or exactly how it felt when I was in the ER, in what felt like the worst pain of my life. I don't remember. There is nothing there. What I do remember from that night are facts and impressions, but they're all external. Nothing from what I was experiencing internally remains.

But the other nights, where I was crying because I was so emotionally hurt, or embarrassed, or scared, those I remember in vivid detail.

Everything.

And it can all be called back in a second. By the smallest thing. And suddenly I am reliving it. All of it. Not just the emotional anguish, but the physical pain that comes from crying for so long, and from curling up in such a tight ball.

Those memories, the physical pain that accompanied the emotional? I remember perfectly.

It's what makes it so impossible to compare a current injury to a past one. Only the present one, the one of whose presence your body continually reminds you of in excruciating detail, is important. The rest are just factual blurs, devoid of any senses or feelings.

And that's why we're able to continue to put ourselves into potentially harmful situations. Sure it'll be like that time I broke my arm, that was bad, but it wasn't that bad.

But why?

Why do our bodies only hang to to one type of painful memory? There are all types of pain, one is not less-real than the other. Both are important, both can impact our lives. But maybe it's the emotional ones that we can learn form. They are the ones that shape us as people, that change our future behavior, for better or worse. We only change because we are scared of pain, and our bodies keep those memories intact, close to the surface, ready to remind us of the risk of suffering should we stray too close to our old mistakes.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Memories

Triggered by the smallest thing, a book, a smell, they flood into me. Nothing I've consciously repressed, although not something I love to dwell on.

Cleaning brings them all rushing to the forefront. The small tokens I've tucked away, long forgotten.

Today it was a book.

A book that brought with it reminders of a lost friendship. A deep hurt, that, no matter how much time has passed, will still spring up, unexpected.

It's the one thing I threw across the room. Right onto the give-away pile. I am glad to have it gone.

And I am doing my best to let go of the lingering hurt.

Today it was a chapstick.

The one brand I always used for band. For the better parts of three years, I used one chapstick, readying my lips to play the French Horn.

Band is in my past, now. I wish it wasn't. It wasn't by choice.

But just the smell of that chapstick takes me back.

Lifting the horn out of the blue velvet case, feeling the sharp edge of the bell on my leg, the cold metal on my lips.

A whole room of tapping feet, trying to stay on time.

But now it's all tinged with sadness and regret. Just one more thing my illness took from me. It's in the distant past, but that chapstick brings it roaring back into my present.

At the end of the day, I collapse into bed, exhausted from a day of cleaning. All the memories swirling around me. But it still feels good to do. To clean out the old junk, to see and touch my past, before it is either tossed out the door or hidden back into a drawer, waiting for the next cleaning fever to hit.