it’s time for something rather serious

I think sometimes that I forget that God is a god of empathy - I forget that He is a god that feels sorrow over our pain. I think this is unusual, or rather, it's not the classical portrayal of God. He is typically portrayed as all-knowing, all-understanding. All-righteous and terrible. And He is those things no doubt, but I think to me, at least, the thing about Him that strikes at me me the most is that He cried. He knew the suffering of being mortal. He had compassion to those in need. He felt pain and anguish. Inversely, he knew friendship and the love of those around him. He knew joy. He experienced happiness. And frustration. And exhibited patience. And anger. And I even think, at times, he may have even been a weeee bit sarcastic...

Jesus was human. He experienced feeling and emotion. He's not distant. Not remote. He felt sad. Abandoned. Betrayed. Weak. He felt everything negative I have ever felt. He seeked to be the lowest of those low. To serve those who most people forgot.

Sometimes I think about this and it literally brings me to tears.  I don't understand it and then again, I totally do. And it's this concept - that the creator of all things would willingly experience all things; both good and bad and appreciate them both - that throws me for a loop. It's an act of intense intimacy - feeling what others feel. Seeing their trials and making them your own, when you don't have to.

I just have to remember that sometimes. The living, breathing God that was and is and will always be - He's not remote. He's not punitive or harsh. We complicate things. I complicate things. But my God is a God who feels. Who is not above human emotion. Who immersed Himself in it. Felt it. Lived it. Deliberately sacrificed everything to have a relationship with us. With me.

I take rest in that.

well…this is unexpected

So I'm graduating in three weeks. No, really. I am. Whenever I've said this to people, I've gotten "are you sure?," "you're always graduating," and/or "it's about time" or some variant thereof. Thank you, friends and family, for your vast and unwavering support. It's been appreciated these past nine lonnnng years.

I'm applying for a job next week as a substance abuse prevention specialist. Yea, prevention specialist. What is particularly ironic about this is that I really hated all of my prevention courses but the job itself that I am gunning for is a perfect blend of many jobs that I've always wanted and/or have had and enjoyed. It'll require me to work in conjunction with the local school district and juvenile justice center providing education and skill training for at-risk children ages 7 to 17, along with doing individual, group, and family prevention counseling in addition to crisis intervention. A more comprehensive description is located here. And yes, that is the same company that I worked for as a house manager for the detox center, though it's a different division. Score one for familiarity.

The only downside is that the listing for the prevention specialist located in my county has been filled already - the only opening for this particular position is in a small town about 45 minutes to an hour away depending on how fast one speeds, so I'd be commuting. As a silver lining though, they have not been able to fill this position since December 01, 2009 because of this and so I imagine I'll look pretty good.

As an aside, a small portion of this job will require me to be that somewhat pitiable individual that you probably encountered through the grades of 4th-12th who talked to you in assembly or health class about the dangers of tobacco, beer, and the evil marijuana while painfully attempting to connect by using outdated slang terms or scared you by helping plan a highly over-dramatic Shattered Dreams event at your school that all Texas teenagers are inevitably exposed to and forget within a week.

I just asked my brother if he remembered having to sit through a rendition of such an event and he just launched into a 30 minute tirade about paramedics showing pictures of dead bodies ("The guy next to me kept on making jokes and I couldn't stop laughing"), random intercom and video interruptions during class talking about fictional people dying due to fictional accidents ("I guess it was supposed to be serious but it just pissed me off because they'd all of the sudden come on and scare the living crap out of everyone when we were in the middle of something"), a live re-enactment of a car crash on the football field complete with stage blood and on-site response by fire trucks, police, and paramedics ("I hope there were no real emergencies, because I think half of the city responders were dealing with the fake one"), a fake funeral ("It was in the gym and afterwards I went up to the coffin and opened it because I thought it'd be funny and the teacher yelled at me"), and personal recounts from people who lost loved ones to drinking and driving ("One lady just lost it and started sobbing and it was really awkward").

Yeah. Woo hoo.

So. Here's to asking for prayer about graduation, job applications, and maybe learning new slang and not sounding like tool while using scare tactics on school children.

writers are liars

I'm pretty tired of writing poetry, I've decided. It's ironically tiresome to pretend to be emotionally burdened in ways that I am actually not. I'm not a writer and this poetry class is exhausting.

My boyfriend took me to the museum not too long ago and they had this exhibit of wood sculptures that made me jealous that I do not work with my hands. I'm not sure how people make wood look MORE like wood or make it not look like wood or even manage to make a bowl seem artistic when it's just a simple bowl, yet it's not. I've never been able to do this and it frustrates me sometimes.

The weather is getting warmer and that means disc golf and telescopes and cookouts and kite flying and nights on the patio with him and hookahs and First Friday Art Trail and playing sports I am inevitably bad at. These things make me excited and I can feel the seasons changing. It makes me antsy - like the eve before a really big trip with friends.

I'm going to redo my site. I've just decided this as I've been typing this entry.

I am optimistic and artistically impulsive and happy. These are all good things.

detritus cycle

Standing in her debris,
I remember when I left home for good.
I was seventeen
slender, lithely moving
through the maze of boxes and bags,
piled high and obstinately saved
"to keep memories in"
my mother said, in response
to the adult caseworker's inquiry
as I slipped out the door and far away
from my mother's compulsive needs.

Ten years later, she left a history in rust
patterns and stains along the wall -
waterlogged clothes and rodent droppings.
I count them slowly,
noting the arc and the bend
of organic decay has an artistic degree.
Nothing has changed, including the small
portrait of our nuclear family
hanging hidden behind stacks of rubbish
and suspiciously clean.

So unlike me,
she could never let anything go.

1983

Twenty-six years later
I’m still a reminder
of aeroplanes and one long summer night.

My mom used to tell me stories of her youth
like her aging was my fault.
“I’m sorry,” I’d say
in the conjuncture
of conversational silence and the background sound
of the blaring television and automobiles
that I was not on or in,
(I wished I was)
while she feigned
careful apathy at the day’s news.

I still can’t get the story
about back-alley abortionists
practicing their trade
on the desperate and destitute
out of my head.

judas-tree vs. the willow

Her posture is adopted from the arbor,
arms akimbo with fingers splayed
against her waist like leaves
soft and supple.  She laughs,
aesthetically stating she is the antithesis
of my descriptions,
my insistence of grace.

I wait:
the seasons change.
I am November, damp and brackish
no longer sedate. She starts singing
that it's not as glamorous
as I thought it would be -
this scythed state; to amputate
interlocked boughs and limbs
in the malaise makes me wish for spring.

it's not as frozen as it once was

They do ring.

My boyfriend has windchimes that work in the cold.

yea, I know

I am very silent, like the weather. I adopt my posture from the trees.

i've been told i've been too silent recently

The ambiguity of words never fails to amaze me. For example, the definition of what a "date" is seems to be too fluid. I think there should be some ground rules as to what exactly is considered a "date" - I've learned throughout my extensive travels that West Texas has a definitive culture and there is a set ritual to courting and/or wooing (and one that I am partial to at that; I can be surprisingly traditional despite all of my seemly quirks). However, I find the entire "what the hell are we to each other, exactly?" phase annoying and seek to eliminate it as soon as a specific level of compatibility and mutual interest has been reached. This is colloquially referred to as the "DTR" by my generation. I just call it being freakin' practical. I think that a level of unabashed honesty is appreciated in a realm where the coy, flirtatious, and frustratingly coquettish is the norm. This, of course, requires a specific amount of courage and generally readying oneself for the possibility of falling flat on one's face. And for some strange, cosmic reason, there is always a period of second guessing no matter HOW overt the signs are from your object of interest. There's the entire "well maybe I'm reading too much into this could he/she possibly really likemeomgwejusthuggedanditlastedforlongerthanthreeseconds HAHAHA I WIN!!!11!1!!!......................I dunno. Maybe he/she just sees us as friends" inner monologue that can possibly destroy any sense of sanity a person has managed to retain throughout this entire process. Friends, if consulted, generally sigh at this point and rub their head in frustration.

Yep.

I've decided that all of the above applies to everyone - regardless of gender or age. Fact.

It's also very easily avoidable, I've decided, if words or phrases weren't so equivocal. "We should go get something to eat sometime soon" vs. "Hey, I'd like to take you out to dinner this weekend" - see how easy that is? To further break it down, the first sentence is basically saying "I'd be partial to the idea of you and I maybe going out for a nondescript meal at a vague point in the future" opposed to "I am going to pick you up and pay for dinner THIS weekend." People in these types of situations are THE most afraid of being misunderstood or misread, yet the simple act of communication is lost in this comical jumble of vague wording.

I fall 100% completely into this category as well. I am poking fun at myself and my ability to almost spill coffee on myself or fall at the most inopportune times or for the times I fiddle with my jewelry so much that I break the clasp on my necklace or my ever present vague wording until my level of honesty gets the best of me and it comes forth like most things with me usually do (good or bad). I amuse and am amused by not only those around me but by myself.

Things worked out really well this time. I'm very happy and everyone knows why, which in itself makes me happy too.

today i am yelling

I've neglected my time on here, per the usual Fall reclusiveness.  Only internet reclusiveness though.  I've been working on building relationships.

I am introverted by design. I have a hard time remembering names and even a harder time putting faces to situations - it takes a good two to maybe three times interacting with me for a period of at least five minutes before I commit your name and face to solid memory, with the exception of people who strike me as inordinately interesting. I realize this sounds horrible; I'm admitting this as a deep source of personal embarrassment and shame. This is my personality fault and I do not expect those around me to entertain me to an unreasonable degree, nor do I expect them to have to go out of their way to make an impression on me. The result of me being socially inept in some situations (especially involving groups of new people) stems from insecurity on my part - I realize that I am, for lack of a better word, unusual. Knowing this, I have a tendency to withdraw and to interact with only those that have made a comfortable and pronounced notch on my social stick meter. The only thing that does this, outside of those I find inordinately interesting, is time. It used to be lots of time, but I've gotten it down to about a month now of casual, semi-frequent interaction before I am comfortable.

I'm learning to talk to more people in large groups - all sorts of people, even those I have very little in common with. And I generally like them all. I used to be unable to do this - I limited my friend pool to maybe two or three people out of fear. Fear of what, exactly, is ambiguous. Fear of being belittled seems a bit juvenile and isn't really applicable; it's a well known fact I could give two damns about people mocking me. Fear of being labeled - I dislike being called "weird" at times (this happens a lot, actually, to the point where I just nod in acceptance without protest or asking for embellishment) and at other times, I wholeheartedly agree (I am definitely and most okay with the fact that I like to read Wikipedia for fun and I'll be damned if that's "weird"). I am apparently "quirky" which is always followed by an insistent declaration of being a complement. Okay. Descriptive labels don't really bother me - hell, in fact, most of them are pretty easily predicted by me, even if I don't always understand them.

Fear of being misunderstood is a big one - I don't like people assuming things of me. I have several articulatory fumbles - the spoken word has never been my strong point and never will be. I have the verbal grace of a drunken monkey at times; I will crash and break through the meaning of several things before I get to my point and by then, my point is most often obscured by a high degree of embarrassing mess. People assuming things out of my personality is okay - I might even live up to it, if I think it's a worthy attributed quality they've given me; people assuming things out of my words is less of a flattering thought. I am quiet and reluctant to speak. My verbal posture is typically guarded.

I've learned to not take myself so seriously over the course of four years or so. This month has been about talking. I am learning to be more vulnerable in my actions and in my words. I've always been about transparency, but on a social level, I can be a level of cold that is not genuinely me.

This Fall is a thawing one.