I'm leaving on a jet plane....

Ok, so it is not even close to a jet plane...it is a U-Haul truck and my 2004 red Hyundai Accent with 75,000 miles on it, previously having survived annihilation. It is a two day trip across the southern US with a drugged dog, my mom driving exactly the speed limit, and hours of Gordon Lightfoot and Simon & Garfunkle. (I hope I make it!)

I pretty much have just a couple more days left in Tucson. I don't know why it is so upsetting for me to leave, when I had no plans of staying here in the first place. My goal was get in, get out. I came down for one purpose, and as soon as that was fulfilled I was on to greener pastures. Maybe the leaving is bittersweet because I did not fulfill my goals; I failed at what I came here to accomplish. Sometimes I feel like leaving means finally, completely giving up on my dreams. But life here has been more nightmare than dream, so I think maybe that is misguided logic. I know leaving is hard because finally I have made some friends here, and found a community I fit into. I have never made friends easily, and I don't fit well into group dynamics. I enjoy solitude, and am easily annoyed by others; but for some reason I have found a group of people that I like, and I think they tolerate me pretty well. It is going to be hard to find anything that mirrors this anywhere else. As I write, I can't even think about leaving some of my friends without tearing up. It feels like a big open wound in my chest, that I am not sure how I am going to mend.

But you always have to look on the sunny side of life, right? So I guess I will call this an adventure, or maybe a social experiment. How does a liberal, feminist, Christian fare in the Southern Bible belt? Well, at least I get to spend my mornings looking out over beautiful acres of forests and valleys while deer and their babies munch grass, bunnies hop by, and birds fight with the squirrels for sunflower seeds. Ok, so it sounds like somewhere Snow White would live. As long as there are no woodsmen out to cut out my heart, I think it should be a great place to find physical, emotional and spiritual rest. A place where I can refocus my life's goals and try to remember what is really important in life; family, friends, making memories that help sustain you through the rough times.

I don't want to leave Tucson; it was a decision I made, but not a choice. And I don't want to stay here because I love the city of Tucson, but because I love the people in my life here! But sometimes you just got to do what you got to do. I hope I can take all the happy memories that Tucson has given me along for the ride, and leave all the pain, failure, and stress behind.

Thank you Tucson for the good and bad times; I hope I am leaving here a better person for it.

Random musings trying to pass off as poetry

Invisible
I used to have colors that burned bright as the sun. People would look at me, and my colors would shimmer off of them; light reflecting light.
People wanted to be around me. I had bounce in my step, and when I stepped I never looked back.
I was not the center of anyone’s attention, but there was attention in my life.
I wanted to be the best, but I did not need everyone else to think I was.
I was going somewhere, and people noticed.
I could fly by the seat of my pants; I mean I could really fly. I thought the sky was the limit, and I wasn’t ready to stop there.
Then one day I fell. And I didn’t shine like I used to. The brightness of my colors did not touch anyone else; I was fading. I was stealing other people’s light.
I was not the center, the periphery, or on the radar, of anyone’s attention.
My colors disappeared until you could see through me, all my life was just background.
The bright blues of the sky and brilliant yellows, oranges, and reds of the sun were gone.
No one looked my way anymore, and if their eyes happened to pass over where I was, they wouldn’t see me. I was invisible.
I stopped looking too.
I could no longer see myself, and my eyes went dark, so that I could not see any light at all.
All that was left was darkness and silence.
Invisibility is lonely.

I pray for death

There is a line from Goodwill Hunting, Ben Affleck is talking to Matt Damon, and he says this line: "Every day I come by your house and I pick you up. And we go out. We have a few drinks, and a few laughs, and it's great. But you know what the best part of my day is? For about ten seconds, from when I pull up to the curb and when I get to your door, 'cause I think, maybe I'll get up there and I'll knock on the door and you won't be there. No goodbye. No see you later. No nothing. You just left. I don't know much, but I know that."  For me it is one of the best lines in a pretty great film.  And every morning, when I wake up, I pray for about ten seconds before I open my eyes, that I am going to open them in paradise.  That somehow God finally answered my prayers, found mercy, and I was just gone.  No goodbyes.  No messy lose ends to tie up.  No nothing.  But then I hear my dog snore, and see the sun coming through the back window, and I know what is to come.  Those ten seconds are the happiest of my day.

I know as soon as I put my feet on the ground I am going to feel pain, feel weakness.  I have to live in my world of isolation, with only my thoughts of what a complete failure my life is to keep me company.  I count down the minutes until it is time to sleep again, so I can try once more for those ten happy seconds of oblivion, when, still heavy with sleep, I can almost trick myself into believing that this is not my life.  Sadly, most nights sleep is elusive, one last jab at the fleeting moments of happiness I have.

Fairness, Justice, and Greed: The American Way

I have been having trouble sleeping, and I lie awake at night, and mostly go through everything I have to do during the week, and watch South Park at 1am. But sometimes I think about really deep questions, and last night was one of those nights. I have a friend I have never met. She lives on the other side of the country. But we share the same illness, and through that experience, we have supported each other, shared in victories, and lifted each other up in prayer through the tough times. I found out recently that this friend, who has spent years battling a chronic illness, has now been diagnosed with a very serious cancer. She is 26, and she needs a hysterectomy.

So last night I lay there, and thought about how unfair life is. Once you have had brain surgery, and spent years of your life fighting for some semblance of normalcy, shouldn't you get a pass for the rest of your life. Like a "Get out of Jail Free" card in monopoly. You should not be 26, and facing another life-threatening illness, or having to deal with all the emotions of never being able to have children. I thought about how some people intentionally (although maybe not always consciously), cause the destruction in their own lives; alcoholics, drug addicts, convicts. And why does it seem that these people get chance, after chance to make their lives right and start again? Why are there so many couples who desperately want children, and can provide them a good home, but just can't conceive; when on the opposite end of the spectrum there are so many children living in homes of neglect and abuse? I once worked with a couple that killed their 1 year old daughter, and almost killed their 3 year old son, and they plea bargained and did less than 5 years for her murder. Where was the justice there? I know God says that "justice" and "vengeance" are His, but from where I am sitting the scales are tipped way in the favor of injustice!

My friend I mentioned before needs a surgery to save her life, and insurance will not pay for it. I understand this predicament, having been through a similar situation. I just don't understand how a corporation can met out life and death. How can they weigh someone's life based on a bottom line? I don't have all the answers. I know healthcare is expensive, but I don't think the expense should also be human lives.

I want to believe that in our core, most of us are good and decent people. But I also think that it is somehow in the nature of people to be greedy and selfish, and that until we learn to fight against that nature, there really is no fairness or justice in our world.

Death by CL

It is amazing how someone can wound you so badly without ever laying a hand on you. How someone's words, actions or even inactions can cut deeper than any actual blade. I have spent a large portion of my adult life attempting to prevent just this sort of pain. I have built walls and defenses that even the ancient Chinese would be proud of. Like the lyrics of Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah, "all I've ever learned from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you." I was good at leaving before things got too complicated, before I was so involved that the only inevitability was pain.

But then one day, in a fit of passion, when you are heady with love, somehow the defenses are abandoned, and the walls come crashing down. I know it is my own fault, because the only end result of vulnerability is hurt. I guess sometimes that can be a good thing. Most of the times we only really grow from those things that cause us to be uncomfortable. If we feel great where we are, why would we move forward? But right now, in this moment, I just don't see any point for this kind of pain.

My first blog

I guess I am a little late jumping on the blogging bandwagon, but all my friends are doing it, and I want to be cool too! My life is not very interesting, so I doubt anyone will actually be reading my blog; but hey it gives me something to do instead of sitting in my green Goodwill armchair, where the arms fall off when you sit in it, watching Law & Order: SVU episodes all day.

My mom is staying with me right now (helping out after I had brain surgery), and she is watching Everybody Loves Raymond. I hate that show, but since I am "messing around on the computer" she gets to choose what to watch. It is really hard to concentrate on something deep and meaningful to write in my first blog when there is some annoying, loud show on in the background. The dog is also snoring, and this makes it even harder to concentrate on writing. I guess that is why I sucked at working from home, and I have two unfinished novels.

Well, I don't think this turned out too terrible for my first blog post (ok, maybe it does suck) but just in case anybody is reading, give me a second chance and it might get better, but I am not promising anything!