I am that girl

I was standing in the shower this morning (that's where I have most of my brilliant ideas) with a cup of  coffee.  This is something I do regularly; lazy weekend morning indulgence with the water so hot it leaves my skin red, drinking a cup of coffee that tastes slightly of shampoo.  I can feel the toxins leeching out of my pores under the steady attention of steam and exfoliating body wash, and today tears, hotter than the water, splashing into my coffee.

To be honest I don't cry very often.  I get angry sometimes and I laugh most of the time, but I don't cry.  I hate it.  It makes my face all red and splotchy, gives me a headache, and makes me feel gross in general.  So when I do feel the need to cry, I make some excuse and hide myself in the shower.  So today it was hot water, coffee, and tears.

A decision was made (by me) that will make my life very difficult in the coming months.  It was a right decision.  It was a good decision.  It was a decision that needed to be made.  It was made with much deliberation, advice seeking, and internal moral wrestling.  But I am not looking forward to it's results. Frankly, I'm terrified.  Yep.  I said it.  I am flat out scared. 

Okay.  That's great.  That's enough to lead to tears in the shower, but it didn't.  Nope. Here's what did:

I feel very alone.

Ugh.

Who wants to admit that?  Especially when I know full well that I am surrounded by wonderful friends and family who would support me to the ends of the earth!  And here's what's worse:

I relate to those obnoxious internet memes that say "She says she's fine, but inside she's coming apart."  Only mine would read, "She says she's fine, but when she runs off to the shower she cries into a cup of coffee!"

I don't want to be that girl.  I want to be wonderfully stable, happy even in the worst of times, the rock that everyone else runs to because they need advice or a smile or just to know that everything is going to be okay.  I want to be infectious laughter, the bright light of hope in the darkness, an inspiration.  I want to be fun, funny, and endearingly dysfunctional.  I don't want to be the melodramatic sigh that makes everyone cringe while reading my facebook page.

The truth is, we are all that girl sometimes.  Not always.  But sometimes everyone sinks into that darkness where the debate between the health benefits of a jog and a glass of red wine ends in the bottom of the wine bottle and the desire to adopt every dog on the ASPCA website so that someone can have a good life!  (Okay, so maybe that's just my personal scenario, but I still feel like someone on the planet can relate.)

Because everyone has those moments.  Everyone.  And yet I am so blind I am to other people's coffee in the shower tears.  My theory is that they, like myself, hide these moments.  I have my own reasons.  I don't want to be perceived as a weak, internet meme following pussy indulging in a hormone driven emotional breakdown.  But that's the truth.  I am that girl.  And while 85% of the time I am a strong, together, bill-paying, responsible adult, the other 15% of the time I'm ashamed of who I am. 

And I shouldn't be.  There is room in me to be both women; strong, independent and happy but with weaknesses and (God forbid!) needs that I can't fulfill by myself.  Hiding my personal pain and  fear is not the right answer.   Crying in the shower isn't bad, but it doesn't lead to answers or to the kind of peace I'm searching for.  Sometimes I should open my mouth and actually share what really matters to me, but it is so hard to be that vulnerable.

The need to write something down is pulling itself from the tips of my fingers into my keyboard.  The springs under each key bouncing back with a pop that says, push me down again... again... again!  Children on a trampoline, bouncing and laughing.

But I am not laughing.  I am actually angry today.  A sullen, dark anger that has been building for several weeks and finally exploded out of me in a volcanic rush of acidic remarks and sulfuric tears. It's still rumbling inside of me, an ulcerated stomach with no promise of relief from a magic purple pill. 

There are several things about anger that I understand now.  I understand why red is an angry color.  The backs of my eyelids are prominently red from exhaustion. Anger makes me tired.  I understand why anger is bad for my health.  My back is in knots and my head is throbbing in time with my accelerated pulse.

What I don't understand is why I can't let it go.  I want to.  I really do.  I don't like feeling like this. But I can't.  It's like it's attached itself to my insides and is driving me in close marching formation toward the battlefield, and all I want to do is trip over my fallen comrades, cry for a little while, and look up and see the sunlight breaking through the clouds with a wry, wistful smile of wonder and healing on my face.

Yeah.  It so doesn't work that way.  So today I'm dealing with anger with too many adjectives and a hope that my poor keyboard recovers from the forceful strokes of my belligerent fingers.

Whenever I think about buying something brand new I always visualize what it will look like in five to seven years.  I think about rust and fading, scratches and oozing glue from unskilled but good intentioned repairs. What I discover in those thoughts sometimes makes me smile and sometimes makes me sad because I realize that I know I will love whatever it is more after time has left it's mark than I do now. There is a beauty in the damage.

I love damaged people too.  The pared down wisdom of someone who has been through tragedy draws me like the proverbial moth to a flame. I want to listen to the stories they are loathe to tell and bathe in the neurotic need to hide pain behind a smile or a laugh.  Undercurrents of experience line every word or artistic expression. There's something comfortable about damaged people.  A feeling of home.

Free Will

I once believed in perfect circles.  The universe turning slowly until we finally understand where we're going and why.  But only fate makes a perfect circle.  Free will is a wild, tangential comet spinning from the dust to impact the circle with choices that are not always our own.  Free will is both beautiful and tragic.

Just a tiny thought

Sometimes... when the pragmatic part of my brain takes over and I analyze my emotion I get a little nauseous.  I know it's not bad to feel things deeply, but I hate how it tears little pieces out of my soul.  Like Lord Voldemort.... only the good parts of me.  So that when Harry Potter discovers he's my horcrux he finds a piece of my laughter.

Happy Birthday to Me

I have had a bad attitude about Valentine's Day for many years, but it was never because of the actual concept of the day.  It was always because it interfered with my intense need to indulge in narcissism once a year.  The idea of a day solely observed as a celebration of love is actually a wonderful (if often bittersweet) tradition.  The anti-hallmark, anti-commercialism movement likes to go on and on about the negative aspects, but in reality.... it's kind of nice to hear people saying in public the things they usually reserve for quiet, intimate moments.

Things I Learned on my Porch

When I was a little girl, I would spend weeks at a time with my grandparents.  They lived on a wide expanse of land in the middle of nowhere.  "Going into town" was a big deal, and the road was made of dirt that had to be leveled every few weeks to mitigate erosion.  Every morning and every evening (weather permitting) my grandfather sat on his porch and drank coffee or iced tea.  It was a quiet time.  Quiet conversation.  Quiet activities.  Quiet minds.  When he'd finished his drink he would slap his hands on his knees and say "Wel'p." I've always thought this was a contraction of "well" and "up"... but I've never actually asked.  Regardless, it was an incentive to get moving.  Then he would stand and get busy with the day or go into the house to watch the nightly news.

I treasured these moments of quiet.  The air seemed softer and the birds seemed louder.  It was like meditation without the official title.  It was calming.  Even as an adult, I find my grandparent's porch to be a balm in the midst of a crazy life.

When I bought my house I knew it was the right one.  The porch was perfect.  The first morning I woke up, made a cup of coffee, and sat on the front steps drinking not only coffee but also the early morning August air.  That evening, I did the same on my back porch.  I often invited my sister-in-law over to join me, and we would sit together slowly waking up. I've thrown a few parties, and I've noticed two gathering places: the kitchen and the porch.  The living room with all of its couches and comfortable chairs is often empty.  But the porch is always full of conversation.

My dear friends know that the deepest conversations are had on my back porch under the techni-color glow of my owl lights, staring at the branches of the trees, catching glimpses of the stars as they pulse brighter than the back light of the city, and annoying my neighbor with late night laughter.  Often I find myself sitting in my rocking patio chair drinking a cup of tea and listening to the woes of 4th grade spelling tests or how hard hitting a certain note on the trumpet is or which jump rope technique is the most effective during the annual jump-a-thon. It's amazing how much more meaningful these conversations are when they are had on the porch instead of in the car while rushing from one place to another or at the dinner table (which is the ultimate in multi-tasking... serve food, clean up, carry on conversation, referee arguments, and somehow manage to eat...).

The porch is a place of accidental peace.  It is an intensely quiet area where I can actually focus on the important things being brought to me by my friends or children or a place where I can reflect on my thoughts without the distraction of the television or music or work or the fact that my kitchen is dirty and the fans need to be dusted. I spend my moments listening to the sounds of the birds and enjoying the soft air before dusting off my hands and saying "Wel'p!"  That single word encouraging me to face my life again and bring into my hectic day the peace I'd had a moment before.  I'm grateful for my porch.

"Do that which makes you complete. Be comforted. Work to get along with others. Live in peace." - 2 Cor. 13:11