in the first place.

Is it considered legitimate heartbreak if you signed up for it in the first place?  Or is that sort of thing caused by a preexisting condition?  Maybe something inside of you is disconnected or tangled up, failing to send vital messages to the right areas.

You hurt yourself because you can't help yourself.  You can't help yourself because you hurt yourself.  And nobody can afford to help you.

I'm not sure.

transcended space and time

So there's this guy named Neil Young.  You may have heard of him at some point in your life.  Back in the day, he looked like this most of the time:

And he still looks like that now, except just older.  But still awesome.  Anyway, Neil here wrote a song once, along with many others, and it went like this:

My my, hey hey
Rock and roll is here to stay
It's better to burn out
Than to fade away
My my, hey hey.

  

I know, pretty great.   On a related note which I'm getting to in just a moment, there once was another guy named Kurt Cobain.  He spent most of his time looking like this:

And being called "the spokesman of a generation," and singing about feeling stupid and contagious and wearing grungy sweaters and getting featured on M-TV.  Unfortunately, like many of the greats, Kurt didn't do these things for nearly long enough.  He took his own life in 1994, leaving behind a letter which, among other things, contained a quote from a song by Neil Young, which read, 

It's better to burn out than to fade away.

On a still-related note that I'm getting to, I promise, Drew and I went to a Jake Bugg concert last night.  

See?  We even have blurry, low-quality, blocked-by-other-people's-heads photos to prove it.  It was fantastic, and I even danced in spite of this horrendous cold I have right now that is making me wish I could drill a hole in my head to relieve some pressure.  

Anyway, this 19-year-old prodigy (who makes me feel horribly under-accomplished) whose music has been described as, "The sound of rock and roll being newly discovered," no big deal, played a cover during his encore.  It was a Neil Young song, and it went like this:

My my, hey hey
Rock and roll is here to stay
It's better to burn out
Than to fade away
My my, hey hey.

And as I stood there listening, I had what I guess I'll describe as...a moment?  For lack of a better phrase that I can't think of right now and I'm blaming the cold.  

You see, I'm not cool.  I'm not one of those cool people who knows all of Neil Young and Kurt Cobain's songs by heart.  The only reason I knew that Kurt Cobain quoted the Neil Young song that was being played in front of me in his suicide note is because I'm married to Drew.  And Drew is cool and knows these sorts of things and tells them to me.  I didn't even recognize the song at first.  But then I heard it, that line.  It's better to burn out than to fade away.   

And it felt like everyone in the venue had just transcended space and time and Jake Bugg was every person who's ever lived and stood on a stage playing a guitar, just singing something honest.

transition.

I sit outside at lunch, eating home made mac and cheese in sandals and a breezy t-shirt with the entire half of each of my legs showing out the bottom of my shorts.  And I'm sweating just a little, but I resist the urge to run back into the air conditioned sanctuary.

Simply for the reason that I know this will seem impossible in a matter of weeks.

it's Friday.

I'm not sure how to rid myself of the ever-streaming thought in my mind that my presence and/or very existence is boring everyone around me to death.  I'm not sure how to negotiate between my natural preference of being alone, and the need to not be lonely.  I'm having trouble sifting through and sorting out which things about me are actual things about me, and not just warped, rotted interiors that need to be renovated.

You know?

Anyway.

It would be a good idea,  I think, for you to venture on over to What Would Nora Ephron Do?  Courtney Kearns has become somewhat of a word hero of mine in the past few months, and I feel morally obligated to share her brilliance.  Plus, her blog is named after the woman who brought us Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail and Julie & Julia.  She obviously knows what's up.

She writes about things like booty shorts, being single, awkward first dates, and the fun of kissing boys who she has no intention of marrying.  What is better than that.

"Here's to being bad at life and writing like it's all on purpose."

Amen.

finite.

"Often with humans, both good and bad, my senses simply shut off, they get tired, I give up.  I am polite.  I pretend to understand because I don't want anybody to be hurt.  That is the one weakness that has lead me into the most trouble.  Trying to be kind to others I often get my soul shredded into a kind of spiritual pasta.  No matter.  My brain shuts off.  I listen.  I respond.  And they are too dumb to know that I am not there."**
                                                                                    
                                                                                       -Charles Bukowski

Because my perspective is nothing short of limited.  Because I lack the ability to see anything beyond right this second, in front of my face.  Because I am a finite vessel.  Because I tend to forget more often than I remember.  Because all things greater than this are simply out of my reach.  Because I am nothing more than a child.

You remind me.

At first, I'm mortified.  Because how could you?  But then, for a moment, I get a glance from a more mighty perspective.  I can see that you took a good thing to give me something greater. 

And at least I remember to say Thank You most of the time. 

**Quote ripped off via.

my husband the pitcher man. my stylish father.

There was a sunset last night.  There was a sunset as we loaded the last of our boxes into cars.  I don't mean that in the way that there are sunsets every night.  I mean there was a sunset last night, that burned pink and orange and dark blue, getting brighter by the minute.

I need a picture of that.  After this box, I'm getting a picture of that sunset.

I never took a picture.  And I'm still thinking about how I regret not taking a picture of that gorgeous sunset that bid us farewell on the last day in our first apartment of our whole entire life together.   As I drove away, I saw it drop behind the horizon.  It sunk down past the cut-out-cardboard silhouette of the mountains, where you can never get anything back once it's gone.

These are the things I do to myself, in my brain.  It's torture.  Because obviously that wasn't the last sunset I'll ever see, and it isn't as if we're moving out of the country or anything.  We live ten minutes away if you take the freeway, and will most likely end up back in American Fork by Fall.  But moving has always been significant for me.

You take down all of your carefully-placed pictures, all of the magnets that held little notes to the fridge.  You take down that card someone wrote you or that potted plant your mom gave you which almost died that one time you went on vacation and forgot about it.  You take it all down, you pack it all up.  You literally move on.

It's the ending of one chapter, the beginning of another.  And it makes me so nostalgic and sentimental I practically drown in the feeling of it all.  Such ridiculous emotional indulgence.  Who knows how I function on a regular basis.

I enter the freeway, end the phone call with Drew about what food he should pick up on the way because we're both just starving.  I'm singing to Radiohead, I think, because the local high school station is on a kick lately, which is fine with me.  One song ends, another begins.  The cat and I are meowing back and forth because she hates car rides and being in her traveling cage and she tries to bite her way out.  I laugh, but admire her determination.

And the kids at that radio station must have been pretty in-tune with the universe last night, because then they played "Home."

Home.  Let me come home.
Home is wherever I'm with you.
Oh, home.  Yes, I am home.
Home is where I'm alone with you.

And, for some reason, that about made up for the whole sunset thing.

Growing up is packing all of your earthly possessions into boxes and wondering how your parents did this so many times.  Growing up is having a landlord who rides around your apartment on a bike, peeking in all of the windows.  It's forgetting what season it is because all you do is sit in a heated and air conditioned office all day.  Growing up is not even getting excited on payday, because BILLS, and knowing that at least half of your paycheck will be gone before you get a chance to calculate where to.

Growing up is acknowledging that you despise of something, and doing it regardless, because nobody else is going to do it for you.  And if they are, then what kind of grown-up are you, anyway?

Growing up also means eating cake at 10:30 pm, right after working out.  And with your bare hands because you already packed all of the eating utensils.  It's having a husband who still thinks you're at least somewhat appealing after you do such repulsive things.

 Sometimes it can be pretty cool, I guess.   Even when your life feels kind of up in the air and that's one of your least-favorite feelings because you have the type of personality that thrives in security.

I saw a lady dance yesterday
She was easily swayed
I cannot be tossed and turned 

in this way
I'm not your tiny dancer

-LM

It really doesn't matter.

Sometimes I get to thinking about what I'm capable of.  About that ever-itching word, potential.  I've always disliked it, because it made me tired.  It's an exhausting word.  But sometimes I wonder about what I could have done, if I had woken up earlier.  Not literally, just in a general sort of way.  Though literally waking up earlier most likely would have helped me out as well.

You see, I spent the first 18 years of my life walking around in a stupor.

What makes me any different from the people I admire?  I have hands, just like them.  Only, they use their hands to write beautiful music and inspiring books. They use their hands to perform life-saving surgeries or to pull themselves up to the summit of...Mount Kilimanjaro or something ridiculous like that.  I use mine for browsing the internet at my desk job and driving straight back home at the end of the day.

I have a mind, just like them.  A perfectly good and capable mind.  Only, they use theirs to carry out plans to make miracles happen.  I mostly just dream of the weekend.  That time when I get to sit at home instead of sitting at work.

But I've got taxes to pay and a mortgage to gain.  So it looks like I'll be here a while.

Last night, we saw Deep Sea Diver and Telekinesis.  I would recommend them both, if you're at all concerned about that.

Like I said, it doesn't matter.  I'm being silly.  It's fine.

sin city.

a bit overwhelmed with the great size of this H&M, also with the ridiculously loud music blaring from it.

I started a trend in-between sets.  I call it sitting.

"Why don't these girls wear more practical shoes?  Why is this guy trying to hand me a picture of a scantily-clad woman?  Wait, why is a woman trying to hand me a picture of a scantily-clad woman?  How can that homeless man afford Gucci?  She really calls that a dress?  What happens if she drops something?  Where in the world is everyone getting these huge plastic cups?  Wait, those have alcohol in them?  Don't these people know it's only 2pm?  Do they really make a living, dressing up like batman?  Are we in another casino?  Is smoking inside even a thing?  I can't breathe, can you breathe?  Where can we find water?  Why is that music so loud?  Is anyone even dancing?  Where are the stars?  Is that safe?  Is that legal?  Is that logical?  We need to burn this place to the ground."

passive pacifist.

"My heart is filled with songs of forever,

of a city that endures when all is made new.

I know I don't belong here;

I'll never call this place my home.

I'm just passing through."

To you,

I'm sure you've probably wondered since why I was there for so long and then dropped it in what seemed like a matter of minutes.  You most likely don't understand how I could have gone from caring to not caring just like that.  I doubt that it made any sense to you when I started ignoring each and every phone call.  Did the sound of my voicemail become painful to hear?  I may have owed you more of an explanation than I gave.  To be truthful, for once, I had been disconnected for much longer than I lead on.  I guess I just assumed you'd notice after a while and I would get out of it without even having to say a word.  Unfortunately, this was my strategy for a great amount too many things.  Even in light of your own downfalls, this wasn't fair of me.

I'm not saying that it's right.  It's just that, with the complete lack of positive attention, I settled for the first source of any attention.  Unfortunately, that had to be you.

And you,

You won't believe me when I say that I'm sorry for missing that dinner we planned on.  And the other and the other.  You'll doubt me from now on, when I say, "Oh, yeah, I'll be there!  Totally, see you then."  I can only imagine how shocked you were, that time I found myself yelling my brains out at you while standing outside of the library on campus, like I had never yelled at anyone before.  My eyes were watering and I was shaky.  People were staring.  I only half-noticed.  It became apparent that you had no idea how exhausted I was, that I was completely incapable of carrying my weight as well as yours.  It was a mistake to assume you somehow knew.  I should have told you before it all came spilling out of me like that, boiling hot and bound to leave scars.

It's just that I didn't know how to tell you.  I didn't want to let you down.  It seemed like a better idea to passively take it all in, but the truth is that I was deficient.  I had spent my entire life keeping my head down to avoid the conflict that I don't think I knew "No" was even a valid answer.


And You,

You had such unprecedented timing, just showing up the way you did.  At the precise moment that everyone I had come to depend on copped out, fell away, turned to traitors, you were there.  You were holding my head to your chest while I cried in the Costa Vida parking lot.  You were telling me that you knew I've been through a lot you hadn't, but this you could relate to.  This you understood.

It was never a question of whether or not I could trust you.  It was more dependent on whether or not I was going to decide to deserve what I knew you could give.

rich.

I realized I had been thinking too hard about it.  Not everything I said had to be profound or important or worth writing down, but then again it could be.  Any moment now, I could think up the most impressive thought anyone has ever heard.  Or it could just be more pointless crap as usual, but how do I know unless I give it a chance?  If I keep telling my brain, "No, that's not good enough," or "No, that's been said before," eventually it's is going to get fed up with me and stop throwing out ideas.  And if it stops giving me ideas how will I ever come up with better ones?

After I considered the fact that any thought of mine had the potential to be genius or at least move others in some way, I started writing almost all of them down.  At three a.m., in the bathtub, walking to the gas station for a Dew.  I just write it down.  No matter how brief or obscure the thought.  I give it a chance.  And I find I have a lot more creative ideas now.

a different kind of missing.

The thing is, I tried to make plans, but you only canceled again.  And I have no doubt that you really were sick and tired, like you said.

I just hope not of me.

Maybe by now we're more like two people with memories than actual friends.  Because you no longer rely on me to remind you to breathe, though I think that was the goal all along.  And this next part is selfish, I'd never deny that even once. I guess I just miss how it felt for you to need me.

pieces of the weekend.

T'was glorious to behold.

There is just something delicious to me about that word, "weekend."  The conclusion of yet another week full of so many...life-things.  Eloquent, I know.  Just those things that come with life which can't be avoided at any cost, that make me stop, and sigh, and at mid-sigh say, "Life..."  Because that's just it.  There is nobody to blame and nothing to do other than to keep trudging on through the thick and the thin landscape of this life.  This existence.  That I both love and loathe, depending on the day or the minute or the hour.

The sunlight brought to us a charge, a sense of "we-must-do."  And so, naturally, we cleaned the house.  We organized the medicine cabinet and swept floors, did the dishes and wiped off counter tops, vacuumed carpets and scrubbed toilets. (Well, a toilet.  The only toilet we have.)  And I suddenly feel as though I've finally caught my breath after a long and grueling walk uphill.  Not to say that my life itself has been particularly challenging as of late, but my mind has certainly been doing its best to make it seem that way.  And after this weekend, that irksome feeling has finally decided to go steal someone else's breath for a while.

That's why I felt the need to take pictures of the ordinary this weekend.  To capture those perfectly nothing moments.  Where my mind isn't trying to make things harder than they actually are.  Where I feel like myself.  I wanted to save these fleeting moments, because they won't last forever.

There is new week after every weekend, a new haze after any moment of clarity.  And I will never quite get a grip on that.  But for some strange reason, I feel like acknowledging that fact is the only way to actually get a grip on anything.

wife of the year.

I like watching the same movies.  I like reading the same books.  I like coming home to the same man every night.  I like the fact that he's the only person I'll kiss on the lips for the rest of my life.

This time of year, people like to go on about cliches. And, honestly, I get it.  A cliche is anything that has become trite or commonplace through overuse.  They can be tiring.  Annoying.  Down right maddening.

But I guess I don't believe it's possible to overuse the things that you simply adore.  I love ice cream.  I love Sunday afternoon naps.  I love sushi.  I'm a sucker for acoustic.  I love my husband and the look on his face when I do or say something super girly that he simply does not understand.  Something tells me that I'll never get enough of these things.  I love these things.  How could there ever be enough of love?  That word itself seems to cancel out a passionate word like "love."  Enough passion?  Never.  Passion is what has created all of the things that make living seem worth it to me.

I'm well aware that a box of chocolates and a bouquet of roses is so completely done by now that you just want to die.  But I don't think I could find a girl that would turn them down, once presented to her.  I'm just sayin. To argue that cliches don't exist would be silly and unrealistic.  But I would argue that, by avoiding them completely, you'll miss out.  Some things are repeated for a reason.

Oh, and just in case your gag reflex hasn't had a sufficient amount of exercise just yet, here's what I did for Drew's V-Day present:

Yeah.  I wrote down a reason that I love him everyday from January 1, 2012 - Jauary 1, 2013.  And I know you may be dry heaving right now, but the Wife of the Year award is going to me and there is nothing you can do about it.

today.

"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."

"All we, like sheep, have gone  astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all."

-Msh 14:5-6

I don't know why it's so satisfying to find or come up with words that describe my feelings perfectly.  But, to me, it's one of the keenest pleasures I know of. (See?  I'm boring.  Like Mr. Rochester said, "then your pleasures have been few.")  And it seems that my whole entire existence is one big quest to do that.  To take a whole mess of thought and emotion, and condense it.  To organize it, shave off the excess, until I'm left with nothing but the true, the innate, the primal.  To spit and polish until I describe all of these feelings in a few simple sentences.

my brain.

At what point do I decide that I'm giving in to doubt or just dismissing solid logic?  Up to this point I always took comfort in the fact that the life I lived was guided, that I could weather any storm under the shelter of my own agency. That I now can't seem to locate. 

Why can't I feel that approving push in the right direction?  Was it decided that I simply grew out of a need for direction?  Because I only think it right that I be involved in such a great adjustment.  At least some sort of notification in advance should be required.

All I can think is that I've done what's been asked of me.  I might have expected more out of it than what was realistic, but I can't say I blame myself for that.   A sense of peace, a lack of doubt, and a heart full of love.  So what happens when I've caught up to all of the plans laid out for me.  What happens now that I'm the one in control.

my brain.

We've been joking so lightly
about these heavy things. 
I was never sure
if we should be happy or act sad. 
And who could know
what we were feeling all of this for,
but there had to be
someone else somewhere
feeling possibly even more.

There's something inside of me
suggesting that I might be better off,
getting closer to you. 
I replied that I had been broken
too many times before. 

You told me I had decided
to hold my ground,
I wasn't broken anymore. 

Just a fear
I could learn to live without. 

Ever since I found
my place in these arms,
I'm not broken anymore.

none.

There's a good chance that what you mentioned is something I might have said or done, but I can't say I know myself all that well lately; we haven't had much time to talk.

And I'm not sure what I would take back even if I had the opportunity.

I know I said I loved the way you moved around, with such an absence of any ego.

But now this misinterpreted sense of self, he's someone I'm getting to know.
It's starting to show.

With the skin beneath my eyes getting thinner.
I'm starting to show.

The daytime has never treated me as well.
Weeks spent, putting in efforts to fit this comfortable position.

One chance, and I'm laying down just before the sun makes another appearance. 

So build yourself a cocoon of rage, and stay there.
Shout all of your threats and obscenities from the inside.

Such a distant, cowardice manner.

And avoid all of our faces from now on.
Because what difference could it make for you.

Should I already know the answer to this question?  I'm feeling more and more at ease.  But some days I worry that it's only a sign that I've been drugging my heart with justifications.

I can't say I've figured out what there is to justify about this.

I need a little more transparency.  I need this to stop being a mystery.  It isn't supposed to be.

Stop assuming I know how you feel about me.