the art of acceptance

 11/1/2024 - please let me live God

I try the pill, i swallow

withdraw

maybe it's best this way.

i can't control anything, i can't become anything

shutting out the world, crawling back into my own cuccoon

hiding, waiting to bloom again

into a beautiful butterfly

i take one step in front of the other.

work, home, doctor, grocery store.

work, her house, her house, and then another girl's house.

home. grocery store, doctor. then home.

mundane.

there are people screaming outside my window.

i never thought gunshots are something i'd become used to hearing.

whenever i listen to sad songs it hurts, so i don't. but i love to torture myself every once in a while. i wonder if i can even be this raw on the blog. this vulnerable.

maybe if i travel, things will be okay. i should've stuck with it. i don't know why i let people convince me to stay home. 

be mindful.

clock ticks, and i wonder if i'm actually running out of time.

if this time i have is actually all i'm going to have left, one of the few moments, if i'm actually dying.

if running across the world was just a dream.

if good health was just a dream.

11/3/2024

I'm scared to try my lexapro, but i'm going to have to.

I have to calm down, just a little bit.

11/8/2024

I sit here, ready to reflect on my emotions.

I have everything planned out, laid out before me, and yet I can't live that way.

I have to be slow, sloppy, sleepy.

Too much work is not for my rested soul, at least until i completely heal.

My face feels dry and warm. Lips tight and taught. Stomach growling.

Yet i can't think. I can't touch the deepest part of my mind. I still pull back. It still stings to touch.

Whispers, voices, people.

None of them love me, none of them know me, none of them are mine.

Highest above, won't you come down?

Rest for my weary soul I cannot fathom, more rest than the sleep I feel down here below.

Carry me into the wind, let me recede and un-peel.

softly.

so i don't feel a thing. 

i'm tired of feeling pain to be happy. to not even be happy, to survive.

needles, sharp pains, fluids, bruises.

It's amazing how my clothes follow me wherever I go. I just put on a shirt today and realized, wow, I haven't worn this since that one night in Oregon. How did it get here?

I'm so blessed to be in a stable state. To not be in the hospital, to not feel like I'm dying, to spend time in my bedroom. I will thank God forever.

11/10/2024

11:32

Just came to another realization in church. Usually I always have these little moments in church where I remember who I am, where I came from, what I'm meant to do.

I'm not supposed to live this mundane, quiet life. I belong to the missionary world. To not own much possessions and live to serve and pray and seek out God. To see the world and to give and give and give, not buy and consume like we are taught to do as Americans.

Also, just wanted to add this in before I forgot, one dude who came into my job yesterday smelled like my cousin's old house near the New Jersey coast.

13:55

I now understand what Mitski means when she sings, "lately i've been feeling like a tall child".

I also realize that i may have said that first portion about a hundred times about me not belonging here and needing to travel. It's monotonously racking my brain. I'm sorry.

11/11/2024 - i hold these words so close to my heart

06:23

I'll be honest, I haven't been so good at spending time with God lately. Everybody makes mistakes, but I need to buckle down now.

I remember sitting in my car in the chick-fil-a parking lot at midnight, reading and dreaming.

22:06

I am stuck here grieving, reliving these moments.

I figured out i cannot live without art, art cannot live without me. 

the ability to create, the ability that God kissed us with.

we cannot let it go to waste.

my elbows bend beneath the shadows, beneath the curves and edges where the earth sinks.

i see the opening down below, a small peeping-hole

it is not big enough yet for me to fit through

but, maybe, in another year, i will be able to.

please, God, let me live to create.

i bleed on paper, for who, for what, and why?
is it for me?

the hidden boxes in my mind, the unopened ones?

my mind is fighting for itself. my mind is fighting to break free.

i run my fingers along my swollen jaw, i force to open and close it. i breathe.

life is beautiful, and i made it here.

i breathe, i do not cry.

i breathe, i breathe, i breathe.

11/13/2024

08:10

I wake up this morning, with x's marked on my hands and a faded red stamp. My ears weakened but not sore. The world's sounds feel trapped in a bubble.

What a privilege, getting to see a band in person that I listened to so adamantly in spain. What a privilege to argue with parents, to laugh with friends, to be silent from overstimulation, to cry and wail because it hurts. What a privilege to feel.

I hope medicine doesn't take that away from me. I want to stay in the noise.

Today i took a longer shower than usual. 

i stood there and let the water fall, let it sink in.

i feel like i'm letting everybody down, but i can't help it.

i scrubbed the x's off of my hands. they're faint, but they're still there.

i kind of liked them.

I remember stomping through the beach, just getting back to north carolina, before i had my big scare. I was listening to the same song i'm listening to now (duckling fantasy - by stove). 

everything felt so strange, and that song reminded me of my evening drives in oregon. 

i was running from the rain.

the drops were soaking, making little spots in the sand.

i wanted to read my book, and i already walked miles away from the beach house with my headphones pounding in my ears. 

my sundress tangled, beach bag thumping against the backs of my legs, i ran. 

my skin pricking cold, how it brings back memories.

the rain touching my bare skin, i can taste it.

the sweet rain falling from the forever-high trees in oregon. 

i stick my tongue out now, and taste it, on the windy dark shore.

it's the same rain, it's the same rain everywhere.

the aching soles of my feet treading against the hard sand, now the same aching soles that stand still in the shower after a full day of corporate work. after a full day of letting the world down, and holding onto God by a string let down from heaven.

He's so high up, i can barely see him. but i want to believe that he's there.

bring it on, sky, clouds, rain.

everybody hurts. a patient came in today with a huge scar across his arm, his limbs tethered. 

everybody experiences the same extent of pain we do, maybe even more, and i forget that.

the people who are in the hospital with tubes down their noses or stomachs, they experienced the worst terrifying i'm-about-to-die scare ever before making it there.

we are not the only ones, but we survive. 

some of us have it worse, and some of us are holding onto what's left.

we all survive.