not what anyone would say

So it's been a minute since I've put thought here. I suppose everything goes to facebook these days, mostly because I'm not afraid to have my heart on my sleeve. If you want to know, trust me, you will. I'm not much for hiding things. Sometimes that makes people uncomfortable, most times it makes me thankful. The above picture is something I made last week. I called it "My Brain." Just a small clue. "I just wanna say, I'm the type of person who lets fear drive. I'm the type of guy who lets it drive..." that song is on my player, again. Has been pretty much every day since I bought the album. Grace. A new concept to this little wretch.

Legalism is a stranglehold. It held me and my loved ones well into my adult years, and is still creeping in ways I'm sometimes blind to. Thank God for people who love me enough to speak truth to me even when it's hard for them to do.

The challenge recently has been that though God's grown me in leaps and bounds over this last year, it is time to let those big things I've learned filter down into the little things, into the everyday. "A view from a good friend who disapproves but understands" that lyric just played when I paused after everyday, and that's pretty much exactly it. A good friend sat me down and said I needed to change some things up. "Cause I know it's not what you deserve." She said while things have changed, and while I have had good things surrounding my life and good things in and out of my life, the enemy still had the capabilities of using those good things to keep me from best things. Her challenge? Be single. Be alone. Be purposeful in both an in that solitude seek Christ like never before and with no distraction.

When she spoke her words, my heart matched up with them word for word and seemed to jump for joy inside me. I had been absolutely wrestling with situations on which my heart wasn't clear. Questions like "am I ready? what of baggage? what of timing? what of all my plans I am craving for? What of travel, what of solitude? what of relationship PHOBIA?" plus a thousand others were bouncing inside my head at a million miles an hour, until I heard her say "be single."

In that instant my heart breathed a sigh of relief.

Suddenly all my hopes and dreams seemed to be restored. All of the time I knew I would need to walk through my own heart was handed back to me. And it felt good.

::pause for blender sound drowning out ability to think::

and we're ::blender again:: nope...wait for it...

ok. we're back. :D

I don't know it's hard to understand unless you're me. Most, almost all really, of my friends are ready to be at that next phase of their life. They are actively seeking and searching for Mr. Him or Miss Her. And that makes sense, it does. They are the normal. But for me? That doesn't fit. Not just yet. Thinking of having a family terrifies me. Thinking of the responsibilities that come with being a wife makes my heart scream "I'M NOT READY YET!!!" and really. That's ok. That's actually a really good thing, because let's face it. I still have things I need to purge, things I need to learn, and just in general, life that I need to walk through before I can even think about handing this heart over.

And right now, in that last pause, the perfect song plays. "You close your eyes and kiss your hand, and you blow it. but it isn't meant for me and I know it. Time never had a chance to heal your heart."

So here I am. I'm learning how to pray. Learning how to live a life of truth and love. Learning how to care for things in the moments they are given. Learning how to listen to the hearts of people I love. Learning how listen to my own heart. Learning to get exciting about where God is taking just me. This is good. This is just good.

add to that

so this is where I consider my thoughts safe. not many follow here. Here is where I can say my heart is hurting and overwhelmed and no one that would react other than normal will be any the wiser. i want to punch and cry and scream and laugh and sing and be silent all at once. 

i have my first show in two years on friday. and i am not ready. i do not have the songs i want to sing, nor is my voice anywhere near over being sick. i am thinking of every reason to back out, but be brave i must. i can't back out or i'll be so disappointed in myself. 

add to that that it is finals week. my first starts tomorrow and they don't end until Monday night. 4 total.

add to that I am now scrambling to pull strings together for the first real shoot of my modeling career. and what else would it be but a bridal shoot. the irony. i have to FIND a wedding dress. remind me, but didn't i just SELL a wedding dress?

add to that i am still working full time, M-F 8-5 and volunteering 2 nights a week. We have our video shoot this Wednesday for our big once a year event for my high school girls small group. I also have practice for my show Wednesday night. I also have a final Wednesday afternoon. I also have a doctor's appointment Wednesday noon. I also work Wednesday morning. Ha.

add to that I am training 5 days a week for the half marathon on May 3 as well as trying to keep my body from falling apart by going to a chiropractor 3x a week.

add to that I am leaving for the east coast to see my beloved family, but also to see a boy. a boy i haven't talked to in three days. a boy i used to fall asleep on the phone with every night. a boy who told me he still wanted to get to know me, to pursue me, but again, a boy i haven't heard from in three days, let alone heard his voice. 

i can handle almost everything on my plate. almost. but let's face it. it's always the opposite sex that throws everything into upheaval. i am trying so so hard not to think about it, not to wonder what he's thinking about it, not to check my phone every 5 seconds to see if he's even so much as sent me a text, not to write heart break songs, not to FREAK OUT. cause really. i like him. a lot. and i'm feeling like his likes for me are fading fast. i think the hardest part is that he is the first i've let in since the last shattered things apart. so now holding my ears against the lies that "see, you might as well give up, you are always going to be left behind" is a hard thing to do. 

but here's where the dramatic takes a twist towards the relief.

here's where faith comes in.

i can only talk myself into sanity for so long before i realize i'm already insanely hopeless. if anything, through all the wondering and processing of this, i have learned that above all things, i must trust. i must trust that What i believe in will not fail me. that the Love i have around and in me will not simply let go and toss me to chance. There is rhyme. There is reason. 

So here i sit. Typing my feelings to a safe screen instead of speaking them to a boy and ruining everything. I am a happy busy girl all on my own. I am not defined by a boy, I am not defined by a photograph, I am not defined by a race. I am defined by Love and in Love tonight I will lay all these things to rest. There is nothing that needs adding to that.

stranger things can happen. greens fade into blue. i sit here writing to no one. not even to you. the bottle quickens the wasted time of the glass. drink in deeply, spill it all out. red is the color that you make me see. then eyes grow dark, move over this plane, and past all that was to be. shake it out, never there and yet saturates in and underneath. there is more to this girl than bruised knuckles and a pissed off state of mind. you are my other half and yet i can't save you from this now. the monster comes roaring back, tearing at both your souls. and i can't save you. i can't lend my expertise. i offer nothing but this heart on this sleeve. the monster is a devil, a glutton, a bastard child seeking more. your bodies it seeks to devour, yet your love it cannot hold. i believe in you. i believe in him. if only i could sink my teeth into its very center. if only i could kill it quick. green grass grows on hills I've yet to climb. oceans lap lazily on beaches yet felt by these soles. but give me just a minute. let me collect my thoughts. these passions are gathering, gaining strength, and soon, very soon, the world will see them explode. give me your hand. you will see. you. such a weighted word. orange and blue and red and you. there are no words. there are paintings. pictures. melodies and harmonies. all describing you. and yet your name remains elusive. does it? potential. i am potential. i fidget like a little girl with your voice in my ear. wiggling around and pacing in my room. i don't know what to do with you. back burner, first place. cuss words and waves. music and inspiration. a punching bag in the basement. checking my phone a thousand times a day. a nervous knee, the depth of me. and everyone asks who. you. i don't even know. you. mine is a face that wants to pay the bills. but a body that denies the truth. work harder. push harder. get there. be there. be everything they ask of a girl. and then ask yourself. is this what you want. write your songs, strain your vocal chords. and then ask, what part of this flames the flaunt. my thoughts are slowing. or are they speeding to the point of light with no coherency of what will come next. i can't type fast enough. I'll lose every time. take me to California i'll whisper as i start this drift towards sleep. kiss me on The tower. melt in and out of Greece. No me ame como él. Ámeme para mí.

"Incomplete"

One day I'll find relief
I'll be arrived
And I'll be friend to my friends who know how to be friends
One day I'll be at peace
I'll be enlightened and I'll be married with children and maybe adopt
One day I will be healed
I will gather my wounds forge the end of tragic comedy

One day my mind will retreat
And I'll know God
And I'll be constantly one with her night dusk and day
One day I'll be secure
Like the women I see on their thirtieth anniversaries

Ever unfolding
Ever expanding
Ever adventurous
And torturous
And never done

One day I will speak freely
I'll be less afraid 
And measured outside of my poems and lyrics and art
One day I will be faith-filled
I'll be trusting and spacious authentic and grounded and home

I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time of being forever incomplete

the only song i wrote for you.

i told myself i never would. never write a song to commemorate you. tonight you crossed the line. now i stand, unwrapping this line around my neck. i have chosen not to follow, someone i once gave my heart to. with the firing squad at the ready, everything laid out on a sleeve, your last response, "i'm done wasting any more time with you...I won't spend my strength." what part of "this is healed" do you not understand. how dare you scratch and lash your way back in. you are not my owner, i no longer a slave. this girl has broken free of you. busy yourself with someone else's grave.

___________________________________

you broke this heart for the last time/

tonight the tables have all but/ 

turned for now this heart breaks for/ 

you who hide behind your own /

pretensions that keep you safe/

is all you'll ever need/

and all you'll ever be is sorry/

this is a bridge/

i will let it burn/

watch the match/

drop from this unregretting heart/

this is a bridge/

i will let it burn/

/

you say no more strength to be spent on me/

there was never a day where i was not your crutch/

a world revolving around your heart/

a world that destroyed everything it touched/

you are sinking deeper in/

you are more than self absorbed/

/

this is a bridge/

i will let it burn/

watch the match/

drop from this unregretting heart/

this is a bridge/

/

i will let it burn/

i choked my way out/

battered, bleeding and broken/

at the edge of your raging surface/

i found my strength, something true i could hope in//

fingers itch for words to tell you what i'm really thinking.caffeine sends a surge, with a nervous twitch that sends me shaking.kiss me lullaby.send me off to chase my dreams.but keep these knuckles bleeding.let me fight this out on the big screen.give me divine inspiration to rip out these chains that hold me back.fear uncertainty and complacency die a thousand deaths.no place for you here.no time for your 24 hour rules.for i do not have 24 hours.this life not mine to lose.live now.live best.live more than just alive.this is the diary of change.the documentation of metamorphosis.a release on which soul thrives.these secret words to you leave me with only me.all continues to shatter and break,a breakdown to my knees.while we pursue my place,like glass to water falls each piece.in ocean's endless face a transformation.a definition.an introduction of a single beating moment,of this potential,to me.-b.sue

she told me she just needed a break

My personal problems were silenced tonight. It was my night to volunteer at Clinic with a Heart. We helped 62 homeless and in need people in two hours. Among all the storied I met tonight, there was a girl named Pam*. Pam is a mother. Pam is homeless. Pam is bipolar. Pam is the victim of domestic abuse. Pam can't afford help and Pam can't afford a home. God put me in Pam's way tonight, partly for Pam, but mostly for me.

I sat with Pam tonight as she cried. Through tears she told me she just needed a break. She needed a jump start, a chance. I brought her water to calm her down, and napkins to dry her eyes. I sat with Pam tonight as she cried. I cried on the drive home. I cry now.

"Break my heart for what breaks Yours."

I sang that in all earnestness and sincerity from the stage only two days ago. At the same time Pam was calling 911. She was watching her boyfriend attempt suicide because she had found the strength to leave him. 

"Open my eyes to what I can't see. Open my heart to what's bigger than me. Open my ears to Your whispering. Open my hands to their suffering."

I asked. He answered. Consider this heart more than wide awake.