Bleep bleep beedle ee dee, yup

Hi. I am on my lunch break at work. I am typing this on my tiny phone. I wanted to say that I'm a bit tired of being such a drag all the time. I couldn't sleep last night and realized with a start that I'd like to put all the time I smush into thinking into learning instead. I spend so much time in my head. Granted, I often feel trapped there, but who doesn't like a challenge? I don't want to be so stormy all the time. We all have enough of that. So from now on, I'll post more of the sunshine. I might try a music posting project my brother suggested. Or upload my instagram pictures. And surely, when I have no one to turn while I'm sifting through the dark, I'll turn to you, but I'll steer some clear skies this way, too. Something good this way comes. Anyway, it's time for me to go. Forgive any typos... this post is proofread-free. Good day to you! Good day to me.

Ballooning

I feel like an alarmist when I post such things in the public eye, but then I remember it's my portal that readers choose to partake in, not some platform upon which I assume responsibility to said readers.

that doesn't mean I don't love you.

:)

by "such things," I mean that I don't know where it came from and I can't explain its intermittence, but I believe I am fighting a depression and that I will do so in some degree for the rest of my life.

I've come across numerous postings lately, on tumblr, postsecret, assorted blogs, etc., where people relay their transition from thinking people who say they battle depression are dramatic, stagnant hypochondriacs to recognizing that they are overcome with a struggle they would rid themselves of as soon as shown how to. I tried never to subscribe to the first evaluation, but the second stands in new light.

Perhaps it's not a depression. I don't even really know what that means. In taking inventory of the trends this blog has taken, you know as well as I do that my grasp on my psyche is some balance of intricate and ignorant. I suppose I am just sad sometimes... some deep, overwhelming, weighty, isolating, paralyzing, exhausting form of sad. Maybe I'll grow out of it.

I wonder if I'll be waiting to grow out of it thirty years from now.

Knowing and living in the joy of the Lord does not translate to happiness. That's okay.

Sometimes I imagine that each of my woes is tied to a balloon or a bird that floats and flies away. I would like to take fewer things seriously and to be more fun and not to have a reason to express these feelings at all. But in my consideration that no time is wasted, I am left to gather that nothing that requires it is wasted, either. Whatever fills your life has filled your life. One of those philosophical mumbo jumbos that sounds overly simple but could spin your head like a carousel if you let it.

I'm just me, though, and this is part of it. I don't smile as often as people would like me to, and I laugh at myself more often than people understand. I don't intend to separate myself from humanity; while it's true that I rarely come across people I feel can process some of my wavelengths, I assume that most people feel the same way about themselves. I am no more than one more creation, living under and within the human condition, yelling a whisper about things everyone already knows. And at the same time, there has never been another with the same set of genes, experiences, and thoughts.

It's whatever.

Thanks for reading. I want to tell you that secretly, I'm pretty fun. That I know a few good jokes, and that I'm a good candidate for listening to you talk about anything that excites you. But then I'd be defending myself, and I don't want to do that here.

ttfn, little chickadees. and something dramatic and inspiring, like

Godspeed.

Morsels

sometimes I catch myself trying to force thoughts into status-sized morsels, and then I remember that's what this is for.

I just want... so many experiences. adventures. destinations. the rearview mirror. I always want to go. to go and be gone.

and some day I may want roots, an anchor, lead feet, down payments...

and some days I want to love somebody, more than I want to be loved, though I refuse to invest the first without affirmation of the latter, and it strikes me today that I'd rather the gypsy adventure than the adventure in love. that one I've tried.

it strikes me today that I dread salesmanship for the same reason any stretch of time without a transition in sight makes my skin feel four sizes too small: fear of rejection.

no one leaves you if you leave first.

unoriginal and straightforward. nothing to dissect and nothing to wonder. but it's there, and it's true.

and the parallel causes me a bit of pain, somewhere southeast of my heart, as though my abdomen maps the country and Georgia throbs with the stagnance of overripe produce.

perhaps tattoos, for me, are a manifestation of this pain.

I hate to run, but I love to run away, and I crave the out-of-breath feeling--the one that arriving in a new place borrows from exercise, the addictive cocktail of discomfort and adrenaline--I crave it every moment it's gone.

Shade

And just like that, the converse swoops in and I am filled with peace. I can think of few things but warm sun and hot coffee, easy laughter and the reliable progression of a good book. I praise God for the times when such pleasantries cloud only my windshield; there are times when I feel they've retreated to my rearview. See: previous post. But like time passes, so do the moods, not only inside time but beside it, as comfortably and calmly. The transitions shake me like tropical winds, but from afar, I am sure I am nothing but a lone sailor on a tempestuous sea. The same clouds that rain create shade--I both curse and praise them.

I love God more clearly than I ever have. I love Him with the sort of gut-replacing, profession-requiring, woe-eclipsing, sun-brightening ferocity I've only ever known for... well, nothing. How can you love someone who loves you perfectly any less than completely?

I don't know if I'm doing it as ambitiously or efficiently or glamorously or memorably as possible, --in fact, I'm sure I'm not-- but this whole living life thing, I do recognize every day that I'm doing it as I'd wish I were. That I've taken steps to amass a set of circumstances I fall asleep thankful for. And by taken steps I mean remained mindful of what obedience to God can provide. He is good. And as a result, if you ask me, most evenings, I'd reply with the same.

Crawling

The anxiety that is worsened by music and by words is a vague and disconcerting one. It won't slow down. My skin is crawling, and the sleep I don't want is the only escape. It's like a silent scream

Grace

Shall we write a bit from the stream of consciousness? The stream of sub-consciousness? I tilt through a drug-induced fog, filled with the nausea of too many contradictions. Spinning with the knowledge of both paradox and purity, strung up with so much to say and no effective way in which to say it. I sing weakly of smiles aimed at backs of heads, I laugh loudly and it means, "I love you." I dream of old loves and of new and I worry not when I wake which is which. I plan to elope and I imagine the view from atop an elephant and I am consumed by the absence of pain and the evanescence of mystery. I stare at pixels til they picture me flying; I comfort the elderly as they mourn the futility of comfort. Fingers run the curves of bodies and the curves of sidewalks, the bends in backs and roads, the heaving of breath and of traffic. Intimacy is stop and go, tornados swirl fast and slow, you mustn't assume that she won't go. Birds fly in patterns because the sky's demand it. I would draw for you what I see, but then you could see it too, and it is mine. Don't you see? Ah. The sea.

It is so late. Too late. The world is massive and it suffocates--there is more space than we know how to fill, and we've none of it left.

I wish I had a giant Lite-Brite of the universe, and I would prick each memory that makes me smile, and they would alight the sorrow-darkened skies, and the contrast between the two would create shapes you'd decipher as stars and worlds and galaxies and rockets and ships and monkeys and plums and we'd pick the ripe ones and press their wine, we'd take rockets to the worlds and ships to the stars, and we'd say, aren't we just the happiest monkeys.

And we would be. We'd be the happiest. Some will disagree, and we won't blame them. We are too busy whistling, too busy squeezing hands and lemonade, too busy tying headscarves and shoelaces, too busy smiling at backs of heads, at the stars, at each other.

Flame

brain thoughts:

I don't listen to instrumental music often enough.

the idea of a puppy kind of makes me want to find the place in which I'd like to stay put, already.

I have quite a bit of tattoo real estate left. this is good.

I'm in love with somebody I don't yet know.

I don't know where to go or what to do or who to see, but I trust God and his love for me and its evidence in His provision, and that knowledge is all that's worth searching for.

Road trips are the best escapes, and that's why I think the flexibility and freedom on a motorcycle will result in the stability I need to move ahead with work and education and friendships and just general peace, really.

I have so much I'd like to do, even the things I don't yet know I want, and it pains me more to imagine still wishing for them ten years from now with no means to do them than it does to imagine leaving as soon as I get comfortable again.

I have to leave. I'll be back.

I'd like to adopt a few of my children.

I don't know why I haven't been to a concert in ages, but it doesn't concern me much. I'm more intrigued by the break from habit than I am by the opportunity to continue it.

I'm not as moody as I was before and I don't know why. it's usually the lack of understanding that triggers it, and so I'm standing by. but for a long while now, I'm never without reason to smile.

God answers prayers.

I am traveling without traveling. I am on the cusp, the brink, the wind. I am a hermit and gypsy and nomad, I am Tinkerbell, I am the Little Prince, I am Fantastic Mr. Fox. I write and read this story, I take pictures I wish required a darkroom to develop. I love loving even more than the people I love sometimes, and I wish someone would climb trees with me. I want to go rock climbing and camping and hiking and skiing and I want to play poker and catch fireflies and hold my breath for as long as I can. I want to listen, laugh, and speak, in that order, and never before listened, laughed, or spoken to. I want to give and to receive, I want to float and to burn, I want to jump and to fly, I want to connect a string between two cans and call it a zipline.

I want to work on the knot within me for as long as it takes, and I want to find what oils it free.

I will turn the oil to flame. I'll use it to light my way home.