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distressing. i care too much about appearances. i was looking through my profile pics on facebook and the thought careened through my head: "what will people think of me based on these pictures?"

not like any of them don't already know i was the weird one in high school...

we don't change much. only the periphery. changing the center takes Olympian strength of will. in essentials we remain very much as we always have been.

so far from home...

about 8 years ago, i was deliriously mad. i was a stranger in familiar territory, having moved to another city to be with my then boyfriend. i broke up with him a little over a year after i had moved, and that suddenly shoved me outside of myself. i hated that place - but what i hated most about it was the person that i became while i was there. desperate, hungry, naive, pathetic. i witnessed the shameful depths of myself, i think, while i was there.

but i also witnessed the disparity of other people, as well. former friends who loved me only because i was part of my boyfriend's life. other friends who came out of the woodwork to prove that they loved me once i left john. strangers who tried to seduce me with talk of houseboats on the lake. tried. the revulsion welled up. men who thought that whispering that i "looked fucking great" into my neck would coax me. my ex-boyfriend who found sadistic pleasure in telling me how great his life was while i was cracking apart. no sympathy, no compassion. people whose characters burst in so many different directions so suddenly that i couldn't keep up. sincerity, lust, spiritual depth, arrogance. but i was bouncingspinningsinking too. i hated myself.

i think what i hated the most was the knowledge of how low i had touched. the depths of my shame and what i would tolerate. what i was certain to tolerate again and again, had i not been rescued.

no, i can't go back there.

voiceless

what good could i do from such a distance? my family hovers like vultures around my grandmother's estate, nipping at each other. the siblings, not the grandkids. we're all watching in disgust and heartache.

i think they have forgotten, in her absence, that she can still see them. that their words wound still, maybe worse, for being sincere and unfiltered. now that they don't have to worry about "upsetting mom," they stab all the more vehemently. one, in particular. merciless, scathing. childish.

i want to do something. scream at them. punch one of them. anything. but i'm voiceless, paraplegic. getting into it would only mire me further, anyway.

a high school friend emailed to tell me that i have been visiting his dreams often of late. and this dredges up the muck that was my obsession with him all those years ago. the uncannily ironic and lurid humor that is fate. i would have, 13 years ago, moved heaven, earth and all universal bodies to hear him tell me that he dreamed of me. but years, events, and marriages create tiny islands out of the mightiest mountain peaks. i read this email with an acute sense of pain and confusion. pain for the reawakened memories; confusion that he would find it appropriate to tell me that he had been dreaming of me.

i had been blessed, our Senior year, with the gift of opportunity. i had chosen him as the recipient of a class assignment. i had to write a poem to and about him. and...read it out loud to the class. shy, insecure, and in raptures, i labored over this poem for weeks. just like in the movies, it would be the moment of discovery. my words - stumbling and timid and affected when spoken, but ringing, fluid and sincere on paper - would spellbind him to me. he would recognize his love for me at that moment.

only...

my fluttering heart choked my spell my tongue blustered my self-possession crumbled and rattled to the floor and i burst into unaccountable tears groped blindly for my desk and wept bitterly for my exposed vulnerability and mangled hopes. the classroom awkwardly echoed shifting feet and glances of sympathy

for him.

it only makes sense that 13 years later, my winged prayers would finally find their mark and stir up dreams now asynchronous and bitter. ineffectual.

yet, i must consider that out of the circles upon circles of friends, he would still remember me, want to be my friend. even subconsciously.

friendship baffles me.

slowly, i am maneuvering my life back into order. little victories, i guess.

my friend is going through a divorce. he's discovering realities about his soon-to-be-ex wife that he couldn't have realized while deployed thousands of miles away. that his wife was not really ready to grow up, no less get married, have kids and live alone for so long.

i think, to a degree, that i understand at least part of what's happening with his wife. she's not content with the "molly mormon" lifestyle - much less the military molly mormon mommy. she's struggling with herself, her faith, her choices. i don't blame her - she hasn't had much opportunity to really form her own life. i'll bet she's questioning everything that she's ever believed. i know she's drinking - maybe heavily.

hindsight, you know. months ago, when i was talking to her about her tattoo, she said she was thinking about getting another one - that she needed the "fire" again. i sympathized - i needed a lot of "fire" in my life as well, in order to make some decisions. i didn't know her fire would be this devastating. i think, though, that she will look back and realize, someday, that she made a huge mistake. then again, i don't know what her intentions are.

makes me think, though, that a marriage is not guaranteed just because it's begun in the temple. the church isn't a fail-safe. i think dave is worried that i might follow sab's pattern and go down the apostate plug-hole. nope. i may not be a good mormon. i may kick and scream at parameters and boundaries. i may question and hypothesize and rebel. but i don't want to drown again, like i did before. i know where sab is heading, and it's not pretty. she'll have a worse time of it than i did - i don't know what's grounding her, if anything at all.

it takes a lot of fuel - of fire - to break out of the earth's gravitational pull. i'm afraid she might use up all of her fuel on the lift-off, and have nothing left for the return journey. she might wander in the orbit for years. who knows.

i'm not scared for her because she's doing things the church warns against. it's not the label "apostate" that causes alarm. it's the possibility of harm that her actions bring.

a diet of rage

i know when i have reached the dregs of my energy when i fuel myself entirely with anger. i let the frustrations drive me. and i'm reckless in my direction. this is the time of the year when motivation dwindles and the end of the school year seems far and wee. i hate grading because i can tell they aren't trying. and i think 'why bust my ass when they won't?' becauseyoulovethemandyou'rejustpissedoffandtomorrowwillbedifferentandkarmawillcatchupwith
youandthemandfranklyyoudon'thavemanyalternativesjustmakeittospringbreakandyou'llbeok.

aw, hell.

i've read that God evolves, like we do. i've also read that our comprehension of God evolves as we we do. then why do we cling so vehemently to the old stages of understanding? why is fundamentalism so rampant? i understand that the "old ways" are more comfortable. time-honored. so are the old fears and hatreds. i think the "old ways" merely give a sheer of legitimacy. we use God to scaffold our ignorance and intolerance.

Kingdom of Heaven - "God will understand. If He does not, then He is not God, and we need not worry."