My Story

The world that we live in is created by the stories we tell ourselves and the ones we tell each other. For a long time I told the world a story about a girl I didn't understand and didn't know. She shared my name, but she was not me. I didn't really know who she was. She was the girl I thought I was supposed to be. She had all the right answers, read her scriptures every day, and said her prayers. She got good grades and she didn't need anyone because she was the life of the party and obviously had all the friends, love, support she could need. Her teachers loved her and people told her she was going somewhere someday.

Then the story fell apart.

I saw the pieces lying around me and started frantically picking them up trying to piece them back together as I went, attempting to get everything back its proper place before anyone looked to closely and saw the cracks around the edges and the stain right down the middle or the missing teeth in my smile. The harder I tried to force the pieces back into the story frame, the more other pieces came apart until there was nothing left of my story, nothing left of the other me.

For four years I've kept trying to put the pieces back together. Tried and failed, tried and failed, tried and failed.

Today I'm not trying to fit old pieces into me.

I'm creating a new me every day. And the story I tell the world is renewed daily in those ever-changing pieces--whirling, twirling, evolving, trying again over and over. It is a story of truth and depth now. It's a story that doesn't have a set ending and that doesn't worry about the way it will be perceived by the people around me. I am beautiful. I am messy. I love learning to be organised. I am late. I am imaginative. I love pink finger nail polish. I want to play the violin again. I am funny. I need you. I can't do this alone. I trust in God. I love reading. I don't have things figured out...and it's okay.

Goodnight, dear void.

Just Run

"Hey, the phone is for you."

"Who is it?"

"I don't know, he says he knows you."

You don't know how, but you know it's him. You don't have to take the receiver to know that he's found you again somehow. All the running and hiding hasn't mattered because it never matters. He always finds you again. You're stomach drops and your heart and breath catch then quicken. You take the phone receiver unwillingly out of social habit and convention. You immediately regret it.

"Hello."

"Katie..."

The receiver drops and you start packing all your things as quickly as you can though you know it doesn't matter. He hasn't just found a phone number, you know he's found your apartment and your car and your new life. If you can start running though, maybe you can lose him--maybe you will win this time, not him.

You run down the stairs instead of taking the elevator, you made that mistake the last time he found you. You don't stop to pick up anything that drops out of your hands, you just keep moving. You have your passport and saved money strapped to a belt under your clothing. You take the door for the second floor since he's either made it to your office cubicle by now or is waiting for you to exit the elevator or stairs on the main floor. You won't let him outsmart you like that this time. Last time he caught you he gave you the scar above your left temple as a reminder that he was in charge and he wouldn't be foiled again. Well you had foiled him. And you would never stop trying to get it right and disappear.

You make it to the washroom towards the back--it's the one designated for families so he would be less likely to assume you'd go in there. Last month you stashed a black wig and an emo outfit and makeup in the utility closet next door to it. You change quickly just like you've practiced. You know he's frantic now because he hasn't found you. You can't make any mistakes. You know what the consequences will be if you do. You may not make it out alive this time.

You ditch your old clothes in a vacant office and pull the fire alarm as you make your way towards the main exit. You don't look too closely at anyone which means he hopefully won't notice you and you have no idea where he is or if he's figured out what is going on.

You make it to the street corner. In a moment of weakness and terror, you look back to see if he's spotted you or if he's looking the wrong direction. Your eyes meet. You run.

He almost walked away.

She was funny. They'd been laughing together for years in fact. He couldn't remember the last time he imagined his life without her. She couldn't leave. He wasn't himself without her. Back then he'd looked up to her and thought she was so cool. After the years of wandering in and out of each other's lives, he realised that his admiration had turned to adoration. She was witty and light hearted. He felt the most like the person he wanted to be when he was with her. But what if she needed more than he was? What if he wasn't enough for her, if she still thought of him as the tinier human who followed her around trying to make her laugh all those years ago? He might love her. What if she didn't return that love when he expressed it? He'd ruin their easy and wonderous friendship and suddenly she would be gone. He couldn't handle that. Although in an effort to keep her, he began to lose her. She wondered why he hadn't asked her to be part of his life for real, why they stayed so close yet so far from one another. She waited for him to say that he felt something more than what he had before. She was falling in love.

I

The library is a place of refuge. It welcomes and envelopes you. You reconize yourself here. The books know your name. They feel your desire. They accept you.

People will tell you who are if you are willing to listen to them. They don't know you. They see you interact with your surroundings, they find a box and put you in. You don't belong there. You never have. But everyone tells you that's where you should live; it's your box. You tell them they're wrong and that you don't belong here. "But you do, we know you. You belong here."

I don't.

The library is quiet.

"We knew you'd return to us. Shhh, come rest your soul. Read, learn, become what you have been given to become. Wait, don't bring that box in here. Boxes are meant to be closed and kept in closets. You are not a box. You are a book, meant to be loved, cherished, opened again and again - rediscovered and reinvented through the ages. I know. That is what they told you. But have you ever believed them? Yes, you tried to because you thought maybe it was where you should live. There's a reason it didn't work. Shhh, listen, they're calling your name again;they've been waiting for you. Shhh, you're safe now."

I am.

I have no idea what's going on

Half the time I have no idea what's going on in my life. The ups and downs and the in betweens. They're hard to put my finger on and sometimes just when I've got them pinned down, they shift, change, and slip out of my grasp again like a bar of soap on the shower floor. I write about the same things over and over and over and yet I don't feel any more sure of my understanding of life and the events and experiences that encompass it than I was at the beginning of all of this. I still find myself most when I'm writing and less when I'm not. I still feel lost and confused and disappointed by myself every day while discovering the beautiful, amazing, and very human parts of me in those dissappointments which leave me feeling grateful after feeling discouraged. I'm so not where I want to be in so many ways and yet I so don't want to be anywhere but here right now - in the thick of it, trying to figure things out. Because this is the most rewarding pursuit of my life. I have a few things figured out and so many more truths to unearth before it's all said and done. And if it weren't for the epic failures of my life I would never have discovered the heart ache and pain I can see in others now that is a result of their epic failures. And without being able to recognize that hidden dispair and fear written in secret volumes of manuscripts on their faces and bodies, I would never want to know them or want to listen to the words they'll never say out loud but they are screaming in their heart of hearts. And if I didn't know them or listen to them, I would never ever get to where I want to be going.

Goodnight, dear void.

Life then

"Why do you do that?"

"What?" She continued taking her ring on and off nervously. She looked down, noticing. "Oh. That. I don't know. Nervous habit I guess."

"Where did you get the ring?"

"Does it matter?"

"Perhaps-Was it his?"

"Yes." She looked down, her eyes glazing over. "He gave it to me just before he left. I've worn it ever since. At first I touched it only when I needed the extra comfort that he would have given me if he'd been here. Now I guess it's habit to touch it when I'm nervous or upset really without thinking. Keeps him with me no matter what. Keeps me hoping he's coimng back still."

"Do you think he's really coming back? It's been so long..." My voice trailed off not wanting to hurt her.

"I know. I know better than anyone how long it's been. It's not up to me though. He said he would come back for me. The most I can do is trust that he will." Her voice was soft, distant, rehearsed almost (as though she'd been saying this over and over in her mind since he'd left).

"What if he doesn't come back?"

"What do you mean?"

"You have to have thought that it is possible that he won't come back for you. Anything could happen. He could change his mind, or his circumstances could keep him from returning though he wants to. What then?"

"Life. Life will happen then. Just exactly as life has been happening since he left.

The train whistle blew and they began to move.

Polka Dots and Rainbows

We loved once. It was long ago and we're different now, I know. But what if our love was different too now? Would you be willing to take a chance? We're not in the same place anymore, I know. What if I showed up at your door? We talked before about dreams and futures. Are we part of each other's anymore? It used to be assumed that we would always be in each other's futures, dreams, lives. Now I'm not so sure. It does feel as though time and space and experience have come between us in a way that can't be undone, but. We loved once.
I had a dream last night. In it I came to you. You thought I was unavailable, I wasn't. I pretended I was for a while. I was afraid. I finally told you I'd come to see you because I wasn't unavailable anymore. You were quiet for a while. Told me to come back in a while. I did. You had a notebook filled with letters and pictures-our love memories. I have one too. You'd always loved me. Even all those years apart. There was another who made you feel things you'd never felt with me. I'd been a constant and beautiful love. She was a burning. We loved once, but my open heart had come too late.
Dreams.
Am I too late, Love? Have you found another who laughs at your jokes and admires your fantasies? Do you still dream? Do you remember all those nights dancing in parking lots, singing in ears, dreaming dreams covered in polka dots and rainbows wondering what life could be for us? Life was simpler then. It was the two of us taking on the world together. Can it be that way again? I know it's late and you've had time to think. I've been thinking too. We loved once. And I think I still love you.

A Body of Feelings: A Future of Success

School was hard to go to the other morning.
I was feeling rather unnerved and unsettled.
uncomfortable.

Those feelings are not abnormal to my body though.
The way they press on me and in- simultaneously -
is a phenomenon I'm quite used to by now
having lived with it coming and going from day to day
for quite a number of years now.

I remember on my mission having to decide
if I would let these feelings keep me from
being the missionary I wanted to be or if I would
go about doing good regardless of the bad I felt.

What a strange and unusual thing to bring home
from the mission field, the ability to move forward
when my body is screaming to stay stationary,
lost in time and space, completely unmoving,
paused.

I got out of my bed anyway, got into my clothes
anyway and drove to school anyway.
I didn't do it alone though.
That in-field lesson learned too,
you don't do hard things lonesomely.

So I prayed, head bent, twice before I could will
myself to leave the vehicle and take the first steps.
It felt like walking towards a doom that was imminent
and ominous - a black cloud - grim reaper.

Why do these feelings coexist in me alongside
the undying desire to succeed and overcome?

I cannot reason except there be a hidden lesson
in agency which I seem to live again and again.
I can choose despite what I feel to make and
create my world and the success within it.

As it always seems to, the feelings I'd had
faded as I left them in the car,
walking away from them and moving forward
towards the future success I am creating here.

To Survive, To Fight, To Have Joy

Living doesn't always come easily or even naturally.

Living is something I'm learning you have to fight for.

It won't just appear happily in front of you.

Some moments, days sometimes even, do, but if every day were handed to you, what kind of life would that be.

I love my life because I have to fight for it nearly every day I live it.

It doesn't come to me from no where - often it comes as a result of sheer grit and will power.

Sometimes I look into other's faces and lives and think that they have it so easy.

That in some ways their lives really are handed to them.

In some ways, my life is handed to me.

Every life has to be fought for in one way or another.

And isn't that the point?

Isn't that what this is all about???

Life, meaning, happiness.

Without working for them, it wouldn't matter to have them.

Because I have to fight for them -life, meaning, happiness- I have joy.

Joy even in all the fighting.

Thank heavens.

Goodnight, dear void.