relevant

i want to make a difference in this world.

show me how.

relief

so i'm home for christmas and despite missing my sister and katy! and wishing they were here, i'm good. this time last year i was anxious and christmas sucked for several reasons. it seemed like every which way i turned i could not find relief. i just finished a semester where i couldn't give a crap about what i was doing and yet i just found out my grades were not too shabby. how did that happen? only God.

i'm strangely hopeful about the new year. not that i'm not normally hopeful every new year, you'd just think by now i'd have learned my frickin lesson. i remain hopelessly hopeful though nothing ever turns out the way you hope, closure is rarely found in any satisfactory way and despite the best of intentions, new year's resolutions are never kept. except this year, i think they were. i only really had three things beyond being a good mother, which doesn't really count as a new year's resolution so much as a daily resolution.

1. to finish up all the lyrics to the only album i've ever made with any organized intention. check! 2. to not finish the year the way i was starting it. i rang in the new year with friends i don't have now and i think i knew at the time that would be true. in fact, i even wrote that to another friend, a still current friend, on december 31st, 2007. it felt somewhat hypocritical but i decided to give it one last effort and when it didn't work, i, for the first time, truly moved on. shocker. resolution 2- check! 3. i decided not to date in 2008. handy that it happened to rhyme like that. and not just not date, cuz depending on the year, that might not be an effort, but intentionally not date. 2007 was a bizarre year for me romantically and i decided that i should take one full year out of my life to realign my emotional spine. and i think that i did. it took delving into my problems a little more which was often painful. it took going to the absolute brink where i questioned if i was even capable of loving again and was scared to find that on certain days, i truly believed i wasn't. it took asking myself why exactly it was i had trust issues- and the answers ended up being much more deeply rooted than i had hoped. but i feel like i have come through something. and despite entertaining the idea of a guy...or two;)...that i know, i felt very certainly that i wasn't free just yet. i felt like nothing would be right until it was...right. i've had really lonely days but i needed them to find God in the void. resolution 3-check!

my resolution for 2009- for it to be the year that changes my life; the year where i achieve what i've been putting off; the year where i take what i've been through and apply it to the best version of me. Bring it on...

fairytales

love has always been against the odds for me
yet i wait patiently and faithfully...

and i still believe
in fairytales,
that in the nick of time
he will be mine
as i'm facing defeat,
and i still believe
in fairytales,
i'm just a loving girl
who still deserves
to be swept off her feet,
and i still believe

on a white horse or in a Mustang...
i don't care how he comes
as long as he stays

and i still believe...

lonely

so, here's the truth:

i'm lonely.

i wish i could say i weren't. i wish i could proclaim that i'm this super-independent woman who doesn't need a man- the woman i always believed myself to be. but i read something recently about how even if one is courageous, the continual, unrelenting necessity for courage can eventually be destructive to the individual. and sometimes, i feel that's me. i've been strong for so long, i'm wiped out. i brought my son out tonight to a christmas festival in this cute area of town. it was great- we saw santa and a real reindeer and had hot chocolate. then we went to have dinner and i saw this family at the next table. a father, mother and three kids. at one point, the mother and daughter got up to go see the christmas attractions leaving the father, his toddler son and the baby who was calmly resting in his baby carrier. the father had his little son on his lap and was playing with and tickling him and laughing. my son turned around and saw this rapport and decided he wanted to come sit on my lap as well. i held him and asked, "do you ever miss your daddy?" No was the reply followed by, "...except sometimes when i do." my heart broke. i realised this isn't just about my own romantic loneliness or the fact that the reason it takes two people to make a child is because it takes at least two to raise one and i'm perpetually left with the responsibility of a two-person job. this is also about the fact that my son is old enough to realise he doesn't have a man around. i don't just want a boyfriend, though i miss kissing like crazy! i want a family unit. i want to offer mutual security. i want someone to get into bed with at night and not know that i am the only adult offering safety to my entire house. i want someone to pray with me and claim God's blessings for our family. i want someone who has at least some of the answers to my son's questions that i don't. i want someone bigger than me to carry the flippin' christmas tree up the frickin' basement stairs! i want someone who is there with me the three times i've had to take my son to the doctor this week, if only to carry our coats so i'm not doing that while carrying him AND fishing around in my purse for a health insurance card.

i had a discussion with some friends this week, one of whom is training to be a dominican priest. we were talking about the sacrifice he's made to never have a partner. i said how being alone really challenges your intimacy with God. we all say that God is all we need and believe it's true, but actually implementing that truth is harder. these past few years God has been the only husband i have had to turn to; the only father my son has had to supplement what i am not as a mother- and i know He's done a better job than the biological one could have ever done. but i have really had to ask myself if i can allow God to supply ALL my needs- not just financially, but emotionally, spiritually and even romantically. am i willing to let Him fill the void that is in my heart? and something i've learned from those who are in relationships is this- no human is ever going to be everything you need. so if you cannot learn to go to God for what you need, you will be expecting this person to be something that only God has the full capability to be. so really, learning to let God be what you need is the only way to be satisfied with someone else for that which they CAN be to you. whatever they can't is God's job and it is unfair to expect everything of them. i realised as i listened to myself say these things that i haven't entirely practiced what i preach. maybe i'm still single because God knows i am capable of reaching this point with Him and He's just not going to impart me to someone else until i get this right.

so i'm not entirely lonely- much less so than those who don't know God or have the relationship with Him that i do. but sometimes, at the end of a long day with a cranky child that won't go to sleep i just have that moment of wishing someone else were here. i know that He is...but a tangible hug from someone who isn't 3 feet tall would be so nice right about now...

autumn

spring time kisses evaporate
as summer heat begins to fade,
by autumn you were gone.

like a leaf turned to dust your love fell from me
like any other season, you had to leave
you had to leave...

i don't know that we were meant to be
there's so much that we'll never see
but as for my lips, there'll never be
another.

your lips melted into mine
and time stood still
and time stood still for us

i can't say that we were meant to be
there's so much we'll just never see
but as for my lips, there'll never be...
i don't know that we were meant to be
there's so much that we'll never see
but as for my lips, there'll never be


...another.

four matches

i burned your picture today
but you didn't go away
no, you stayed,
though i watched it go up in flames
and the pieces dissipate.
it took four matches,
no less than four matches
and it was gone.
but you stayed.
and the smell it lingered
on my fingers
to show me that i'd failed
in getting rid of you
what's left for me to do?
you walked away but i can't...
though you stayed, you walked away
and i just can't.

a resident of what was

i live in a house of memories,
a resident of what was,
lay me down on sheets of sorrow
where tears served as a pillow,
my dreams replay the moments
i can no longer touch,
the windows break forth light
that used to shine
upon a different life,
my frown reflects as smiles
from photos on my mirror,
the calendar is lying -
as is everything here...

misery

i'm in my bedroom
and you're there
can't even bear
to walk down the stairs
cuz our first kiss was on that couch
just feel like screaming out loud,
"Go away! Just go away..."
cuz all our memories
you left here
so they could haunt
just me, my dear
and then you got to move away
feel like i'm stuck with all the pain
go away...just go away...

i hope you see my name
wherever you go
may you lay awake at night
for reasons you don't know
and when you try to run away
i hope you find my face
at every escape
i hope you see me,
like i see you.

misery loves company
but i am so alone, so alone, so alone
you're the one who walked away from me
i do hope you're happy
but i hope you miss
...me

i hope you see my name
wherever you go
may you lay awake at night
for reasons you don't know
and when you try to run away
i hope you find my face
at every escape
i hope you see me
i hope you see me
i hope you miss me...

you don't have to come back
i just hope you feel the lack
of me

i hope you see me
i hope you see me
i hope you see me
...like i still see you

storm cloud eyes

a storm is brewing in my eyes
my love has capsized
your heart...



and like a ship that found its way home by chance
you washed ashore and into my hands
though you swam against the tide
you find you're still mine
and though you thought our Love was lost out at sea
your silent sorrow called out to me
i sent the winds that cast you home
though lost you were never alone...