Its all because we love each other

"So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons, and I guess we will never know most of them." -Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Annie was never my real name but it has always been who I am. When I was small I had a problem with pronunciation. At least, I couldn't be a pirate because my r was a w and they told me that was a problem. I didn't mind so much except for the fact that it meant I couldn't say my real name. I was 3 when I started telling people my name was Annie. It changed to Ann when I was 5, and for a month or so I thought I liked Anna.It always went back to Annie though. Ask any of my cousins or aunts or grandfathers my name and that will be what they say. Annie was better than unpronounceable, uncertain, problematic me.

The Music man came into my life unexpectedly. I wasn't looking for anyone to sweep me away into the magic of music. I wasn't expecting him to send me songs that would reach into my very soul and get me to tell him stories that I didn't know I was keeping secret. I wasn't expecting to have him to make me cry with the beauty he could make with his finger and a few strings. I wasn't expecting him to make me love music the way he did. I wasn't expecting that I could love music like that.

My baby sister thought I was her mom for years. I was as close to one as she ever got and that makes me scared and sad. Scared that I messed up a lot and sad that she didn't get anything better. Better could have been good for her when she started Jr. High but all she got was a sister who was worried about her own first day of High School. Please don't cry baby girl, you'll make friends. Better would have been great when her friends started smoking and she wanted to be popular, but all I could give was a story of how that boy was throwing his life away to be cool. Please don't go down that path baby girl, it's not worth it. Better would have been so much better, but all she got was my love. I love you baby girl. I love you.

Dad wasn't around much but when he was it was always a good day. He had a way of making me think. Making me think about what I wanted to be when I was tall. He never let me think I couldn't do or be or see anything. He made me think the world was at my fingertips ready to lift me up. He made me think about who I was. He made me think of what I was good at, and what I could get better at. He made me think positive, because the flowers in the hospital were beautiful and the sun was still behind those clouds. He made me think of writing and reading and not going to school but still learning. He made me think I was powerful and a force. He was the only one who made me think like that and he taught me so I could do it even with out him.

She told me that she was my best friend and I believed her. I truly though she was helping me when we sat in the bathroom for an hour because English was unbearable. She was my best friend, she only wanted to help so who cared if I failed the class. I really believed her when she said that I shouldn't eat that apple because I was gaining weight. She was my best friend, she was only helping me so it didn't matter that she knew about my problems. I trusted her when she said he wasn't my type. She was my best friend and she only wanted to help so I could forgive her when she started dating him.

 The Music Man and the best friend and Annie and daddy and the baby. All of them were just people. Some of them were there for a minute, others I couldn't get rid of if I wanted to, but they were all there long enough. Long enough to make me think and feel and love and hurt and change. Long enough to help make me be who I am. Long enough to let me make them. Long enough to let us grow together then apart and to be us.

Strangers at her funeral

The day of the funeral arrives and the relatives have all gathered, even though half of them didn’t know her, or any one who knew her. They just know she once lived and now she is dead. 

They never even bothered to know her, to know how she lived, or who she was. Just that they were related, that she lived, and now she is dead. 

We sit in the church, and sing a few songs. 

All those kids screaming and crying, maybe because they knew that something terrible happened, that she wasn’t coming back. Or maybe because their moms didn’t bring enough cheerios. 

A stranger gets up, crying about the sister she never knew, and tells us all the grand things she did. What she doesn’t say, and didn’t ever know, is the little things that mattered. 

About the bear that broke down the front door, or about how she was the first one to tell me I had hips, that she knew secrets, and held them above me with words of my youth. She doesn't know any of that and then the time for words was us and we are getting up, standing in a line. 

“To say goodbye.” Dad says to the baby when she asks. “Why, where did she go?” she asks the next question, not understanding. “She went to heave, but don’t worry, she is waiting for us there.” And then he is silent again. Not able to speak the words that weren’t said before. 

We parade passed her body, see her face, with the smile that says she knew more than we did, and walk on, not knowing what to say. Then my dad breaks, forgetting that he already cried, and for the first time, he is balling like a baby, as weak and helpless as a lamb. A cousin is being strong, holding my mom as she washes off her make up. The baby still didn't know what to think, she is among those who didn’t know her, and travels away to her own world. 

And then there is me, who doesn’t know how to be. Not knowing her well enough to cry, but knowing to much not to care. 

When she is gone, when the coffin has closed its ugly jaws around her and sealed her away, all tears are forgotten. 

We go back to the church and eat that meal. The same one we always eat when some one dies. Ham that is to sweat, salad with tomatoes, cheese potatoes that mush in your mouth. 

And people laugh, glad that the sad part is over and they can go back to their lives. 

She is gone, with no way of coming back, and those who knew her have to put her behind for now, and those who don’t care try to hide there indifference. After the meal there are lots of goodbyes to strangers who claim to know you and then we drive home.

We go back to our lives, saying we don’t have to dwell on the death because she is happier now than she was with us, and her children, and all those people who didn’t know her. She is in a happy place. Don't you know? Don't you have enough faith not to cry?

She was alive, and now she is dead, and even that only mattered for a minute.

I Ain't Never Afraid. Said the Liar. Maybe.

"You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world and there is still going to be someone who hates peaches." Dita Von Tesse

"Potential. Once you're dead, it's gone. Over. You've made what you've made, dreamed your dream, written your name. You may be buried here, you may even walk. But that potential is finished.” -Neil Gaiman

I'm afraid of lots of things.
I'm afraid of losing people.
I'm afraid of them leaving for bigger and better things.
I'm afraid of misplacing them.

 I'm afraid of not knowing why.
and scared to ask for a reason.

 I'm afraid of blood too,
but not my own.

 I'm afraid to drive in the snow.
 I'm afraid to drive in that car.
 I'm afraid to drive with him.
 I might be afraid to drive at all.

 I'm afraid to go to the movies alone.

 I'm afraid of doctors, but not really,
 I'm more afraid of what they say.
I'm afraid of "we don't know whats wrong"s
and "I'm sorry you have"s.

 I'm afraid to go on a mission.
 I'm afraid of not knowing what else to do.

 Mostly though, I'm just afraid of ants.
 Just the thought makes it hard to breath.

 I'm afraid to be like my mother.
 I'm afraid not to be like my daddy.

 I'm afraid that I'll never be able to stick with one handwriting.
 I'm afraid the FBI wouldn't be able to know it was me writing.

 I'm afraid of those pills.
 I'm afraid of scales.
 I'm afraid of what they both meant once.
 I'm afraid of how much they still matter.

 I'm afraid I'll never like myself,
 not like Katie does,
 not even like my mom does.

 I'm afraid to decide wrong.
 I'm afraid to decide too late.
 I'm afraid not to decide.

 I'm afraid of how empty the dark is now.
 I'm afraid you'll stop loving me too.
 I'm afraid I'll forget what you smell like.

 I'm afraid not to ever matter.

I'm not myself since you left

Never fear shadows. They simply mean there's a light shining somewhere nearby. Ruth E. Renkel

We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict. - Jim Morrison

Dear you,

You're gone now.

And without you there to fight away the nightmares, I'm lost and alone and I'm scared.

I'm scared you won't come back,
and I'm scared we'll be different when you do.
I'm scared you'll love someone else someday,
because you are all I can think about
and I don't know if I could handle not having you.

I'm scared I'm losing myself without you here to remind me who I am, and 

I'm scared you are too much of who I am and I'm nothing with out you? 

What if all I ever am is the girl who loves you? 

And what if that isn't all I could have been?

I'm scared of the potential people keep telling me I have.
I don't know if I am good enough to be everything they want of me and
I am scared I'm going to let them down. I'm scared to disappoint everyone I love.
Especially you.
I'm scared I'm going to disappoint you.

I'm scared that I am starting to forget everything you helped me learn. 

I'm scared that I don't believe I am pretty anymore. 

 And I'm starting to be scared of eating again. Being afraid of that is scary.

 I'm scared I might starve myself to death.

I'm scared that our friends were really your friends,
and now I'm alone. What if no one but you ever loves me?
What if you never loved me? What if I never have my own friends?
What if, even when I'm surrounded by people, I'm alone forever?

I'm scared that I don't understand anything, 

and I'm scared that even if I do it still won't make sense. 

I'm scared to not know why things happen, but I'm scared to ask why they do. 

I'm scared I'll never know anything important, and I won't know if i do.

I'm scared of how quiet it gets in my room at night.
 It's been six months and I still get afraid when I wake up
and I can't hear you breathing.
I'm scared of how empty the dark is.

I guess what I am trying to tell you is that, I'm afraid of who I am with out you. 

Love,
Me

It's raining, it's pouring

The other day I was reading and the main character is going though this big ordeal and her life is falling apart. She should, by all accounts, be freaking out but all she can think it: It is raining. I think she was in shock, because that was a silly thing to notice at the time. That might be why the sentence has stuck in my head and gotten me thinking.

                                                                          It is raining.

Such a simple sentence that can mean so much. Is it a gentle patter; a friend knocking softly to get your attention? Is it so calm it is barely a mist, one that comes and soaks the world in a baptism meant to clean it? Is it a sudden burst over the desert, over compensation for months of neglect? Is it the angry kind that pounds the ground with its fists, a temper tantrum from the sky?

Is it falling on the shingles of the roof of the newly wed couple, so in love they can't see straight? Is it pitter-pattering a top the sheet of corrugated tin the man who lost everything is sitting under? Is it evaporating on hot asphalt or freezing on the cold of steel? Is it falling into a lake to be lost in a crowd or carefully being collected and stored away?

Is it because the sky is crying or did an angle over fill her bath? Is it why that old man is snoring or does he always do that? Will it really go away, really come again another day? Does it feel bad for always being late for the rain dances? Has it ever been a cat or a dog? Does it know that it brings May flowers?

Is it being watched by eyes who wish it would change to suit them; or is it falling, perfect in its solidarity? Does it look back at us? Does it see into our windows with as much fascination as we have for it? Does it know about the going away presents it leaves us? Has it seen the beauty of flowers and rainbows?

Does it know it is blocking out the sun and canceling picnics? Does it do it for a reason? Was it saving us from skin cancer? Did it want to come on our picnic? Did it just not want us to go? Does it have dreams? Does it have goals? Does it want to be a lake or end up in a tap? Why is it raining today and not three days ago?

Do these questions matter? Does the rain feel? Is it conscious? Does it know where it falls? Who it hits? What it cleans? When it lands? Who sees?

Or. . .
Is it just raining?

You don't know what you have until it is gone

I'm thinking about you. I'm thinking about you like kids think of the light ten minutes after bed time. Like the winter sun thinks of flowers and parched flowers think of rain. I'm thinking of you like stray dogs think of their collars. Like he thinks of her, and she thinks of him, and we think about us and how we used to be.

I'm still thinking about you. I'm thinking about you like Africans didn't think of AIDS. Like the people thought of Noah when it started to rain and Ariel thought about her voice when Eric didn't know her. I'm thinking of you like retired English teachers think of novels. Like losers think of medals, and bronze thinks of silver, and silver thinks of gold and that last second that decided it all. I'm thinking of you like someone who regrets what could have been.

I'm always thinking of you. I think of you like flies think of wings. Like cake thinks of flour and frosting thinks of powdered sugar. I'm thinking of you like soap thinks of water. Like feet think of socks and socks think of shoes and shoes think of going places. I'm thinking of you like I'm not any good with out you.

I'm thinking about you. I'm thinking about you and your smile. About your smile and your laugh. I'm thinking about your car and the grease under your fingernails. I'm thinking of your fingernails and your hair and the way you played that song all summer long. I'm thinking of you and that snow cone and how with three dollars you told me you wouldn't give up on us.

I'm thinking of you, trying to remember all of that. Remembering that you're coming home. Remembering that you love me and that hasn't changed. Remembering why you're gone. Remembering our plans, and our hopes, and our dreams. Remembering that we aren't over and you are something I don't have to regret.

Jim

I'm liking the name Jim tonight

"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: 'It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to.'"
- Jim Jarmusch

"People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain."
- Jim Morrison

Success is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
-Jim Rohn
I try to do something the audience might not have seen before. Like if I'm gonna kiss a girl I wanna kiss her like a girl has never been kissed. Like maybe I would kick her legs out from under her and catch her right before she hits the ground and then kiss her.
-Jim Carry 

 Dwight: What is the antidote?
Jim: True love's kiss.

Pie can’t compete with cake. Put candles in a cake, it’s a birthday cake. Put candles in a pie, and somebody’s drunk in the kitchen. -Jim Gaffigan

the things you can find in your back pockets

  There is no such word as "Loved". Love has no past tense. If you ever stop loving someone, then you never truly loved them in the first place.  -Unknown

You know when you stick something in your pocket and forget about it;  maybe you'll find it next winter when you wear that coat again, or maybe it gets donated along with the old pair of jeans you're never fitting into, or maybe it falls out and you forget to check for it so it is lost for ever? Well, a boy did that to my heart once. He took it, even though I had no plans to give it to him, and shoved it in his back pocket.

So there I was, with my heart in this boy's pocket and he didn't know it was there because he didn't look for it, and he was putting his heart in someone else's pocket and it made me want to scream because i didn't know her so I couldn't hate her and that is really what all girls want to to when a boy is running around with their heart chasing after someone else's. I wished that it was me who he went all out making Valentine's day special for and had a great time with. I wished it was me that he was kissing, even if he might have tasted funny. And I wished it was me whose heart he took out of his pocket and took care of.

But he wasn't looking for the heart in his back pocket, instead he was looking for the one that he may or may not have had while mine sat there waiting. But my heart wasn't patient. It was telling me that I need to just go up to him and kiss him next time I saw him, even thought that would create a scene and he would feel very uncomfortable about it because he didn't know my heart was in his pocket even though we both agreed that telling someone you liked them was always the better plan. It was also telling me to text him and tell him that I might love him, or I might just like him, I'm not sure, but I do know that I think about him and want to spend time with him in a very un-platonic way. It was telling me a lot of other things to, and I was very impressed that he couldn't hear it screaming at me. I mean it was in his pocket.

But I didn't listen to it, instead I wrote about it. Because we all know that writing is the next best thing when compared to confessing your maybe-love-definitely-an-infatuation-possibly-an-obsessive-want-slash-need-to-be-with-this-boy-who-may-have-been-perfect.

I sang about it too. And then I danced to that song, savoring the flavor of the tragedy. Next, I cried about it, and laughed about my tears. Then, when I fell to the floor out of exhaustion, I landed on my butt and low and behold, I found a heart in my back pocket.

That is the funny thing about love. You think you found it, that the boy you are thinking about right now is the most perfect person in the world and you want to have his babies, then one day you turn around and think . . . oh. I was wrong all along. And you never forget, and you never lose those feelings, but you get new, stronger, better, more pure and right and beautiful ones and you grow and expand and change and find yourself through it all.

That is what it really is, when you love some one it means they helped you find you. That is why you always love them, because you can't get rid of yourself, even when you are stuck in a pocket some where with that boy you don't talk to any more and it hurts and you wish you could. You are who you are because of that trip in his back pocket and there is no going back from that.

Some day over the rainbow

"The future will be better tomorrow" - Dan Quayle

So. Three weeks ago was the first day of the semester and as such I got a couple new teachers. One of said teachers had us fill out a 'getting to know you interview'. One of the questions was as followed: where do you see yourself in 15 years. I liked this question. And I have and answer for it. And, yes, I will tell you said answer.

In 15 years I will be 33. I will be done with school (thank goodness). I will be married to my best friend. We will live in a house we built on the edge of Portland, OR. We will have some little people who call us mom and dad. We will be teaching them how to be great people.

I will own my own bakery and make cinnamon rolls every morning and cakes in the afternoon. All the people I love will gather together there and the room will be warm with love and cinnamon. I will feed people and help them to drown their sorrows in frosting and celebrate victories with cream filling.

I'll be doing as much good outside of my home as I am inside of it and I will be able to be self-sufficient but I won't need to be because my man will be there to take care of me.

We will spend out evenings cooking together and dancing in the kitchen. We will have great friends that we invite over for dinner parties. We will kiss like newly weds and know each other as well as any couple of 50 years. We won't make our kids eat oatmeal if they don't want to.

We will be very happy I think.

that is all.

Real Passion

“If what you’re doing is not your passion, you have nothing to lose.” -Unknown
 

“Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you."  -Oprah Winfrey

Once upon a time I sat in a dark auditorium to watch a substandard Jr. High performance. The band, orchestra, and top choir all got together on the stage and did there best. They sang songs that no one understood the words to but thought were pretty anyway, they played a song arranged by one of the students, they did a lovely tribute to the military, and all in all it wasn't too terrible, but also not too interesting.

 I found myself looking at the people around me.

I watched the lady with a fussy baby try and quiet it. I watched the old married couple hold hands and whisper like school children. I watched my dad send emails to work. But most of all I watched my beautiful little sister breathe in the music around her.

I watched her close her eyes, right there on stage and time her breath with the clashing, slightly off beat music. I watcher her let it wash over her and entirely consume her thoughts to the point where she missed her well practiced cue.

I saw real passion in her that night. I saw a girl who loves something so much that it has become a part of her very soul. I saw someone who was so enthralled in the sound that she only saw the beauty and didn't mind the trumpet that came in early or the flute that kept hitting an ear-splitting high note. And seeing that made me see the beauty in it too.

Prove it

 

Please type the word to prove you aren't a robot. Prove to me that you are human, because I am not sure anymore. You once told me that you loved me but that was a lie. So, do you love? Do you love the girl you left me for? Do you love your mother? Do you love your dog? Do you love anything at all? Or was it all a lie?

Was it pretend all along? Did you care at all? Because I am human. I loved you, and my dog, and my mom. I don't see how you could be a human and not love. That is what makes you human darling, and you seem not to have it.

Prove me wrong.

Let love into your life and be human again. She deserves better than you gave me. She is human, you can tell just by looking at her, and she doesn't deserve the robot you have become.

You don't need to be a robot darling. Let the love in and let it make your heart beat again. Type the word to prove you aren't a robot. Please? Because we still love you?