Starting Now

Starting Now 

I'm on the brink of starting, 

I'm a mess from head to toe. 

I'm thinking of becoming 

someone new that I don't know. 

I can feel my chest is tightening, 

I can sense a shift in tone. 

My thoughts race fast as lightening

as my dread lets out a groan. 

I know I'll like the outcome, 

and the path I'll have to take. 

I'll smile when all is said and done, 

so confidence I'll fake. 

It's scary, it's unnerving, 

it's like this every time. 

I keep thinking about swerving, 

but then victory won't be mine. 

Starting now I'm moving forward, 

I'm letting go of yesterday. 

I'm moving on beyond this herd, 

keeping nervous thoughts at bay. 

I'm showing up and trying, 

I've heard that's all you need. 

My attitude is changing 

and I hear a brand new creed. 

"I can do the hard things! 

I can make mistakes! 

I can just keep going! 

Yes, this will turn out great!"

A Christmas Heart

Christmas time and all I see
Are things that still are yet to be.
Stockings still are packed somewhere
And the trees outside aren't even bare.

How will Christmas come this year?
From what I see we've need to fear.
Will the snow fall down tonight
Covering the world in glowing light?

Are we sure our family kin
Will find their way out here to din?
I know we have a few more days
To fix the things I see delayed.

I know that Christmas still can come
Even if the lights aren't strung.
But Christmas feels so far away,
So with my heart I'll kneel to pray.

O God above, hear my pleas
And send some magic down with speed.
Or will the love from You tonight
Help me see that all is right?

I have the things I really need
To feel the season's warmth indeed.
With love to fill these doubtful eyes,
I want to trust Christ as my guide.

He came to Earth for all of us
And lived a life with little fuss.
He knows I want this Christmas time
To feel so special and sublime.

He knows the things I do not see
Bear little weight for eternity.
He lights my heart with Christmas cheer,
Bringing heaven oh so near.

Thank you Friend, dear Jesus Christ,
For all you do for us each night.
And what you've done for me this day
As in faith I knelt to pray.

You've helped me talk to God above
And with Your grace to feel His love.
Christmas came all on its own
Because I made your heart my home.

Grapes

She whispered frantically into the night, "Dan! Dan, come back here!" It was hard to know how loud to be when she knew the neighbors would be sleeping. Stella ran off through the bushes behind the house hoping Dan had gone that way too. Why did he take off like this lately? She looked over the fence, wondering if she dared go into the Yerdley's backyard. Dan liked to climb the tree and slip over the fence sometimes because he thought she was too old to follow.

"Dan! Dan, come back here!" Stella whispered again. Shoot. He didn't seem to be at the Yerdley's. He also like the tree house at the Helmdig's. Sheryl had called Stella last Thursday to let her know that little Dan was sitting up in their tree house eating grapes. She'd replaced the grapes the following day. Perhaps she should try the tree house.

Stella walked along the property line as she neared the Helmdig's home. She wondered what had set Dan off running this time. It was so hard to know what would trigger old memories that he didn't know how to cope with yet. He'd seen too much. For the millionth time, Stella wished Dan's life had turned out differently.

I'm Still Here

It's taken me a long time to be able to come back here - to wander around these words and try to say something. It's been years. Years. I can't believe it has taken so long and I can't believe it didn't take me longer. I've thought about coming back, hoped that I would, and yet it just never felt right, it never felt like time. I've been wandering, experiencing, living. And all of it has led me right back here to writing. Isn't that funny? We come back around eventually to what we love, though it takes some wandering sometimes.

I'm glad that you are still here, dear blog. I'm glad you've stayed standing in my absence, stayed exactly as I left you when I went off on my crusades. And crusade I did, and did well. I feel like I've gained much of what I set out to gain and seen that gaining isn't the quest I was seeking after all these years. I'm lost and found and alive and dead and together and separate and resolute and undecided. I think I thought that growing up would take care of all of this confusion of feeling, and yet, it has not. Where I thought I would find answers, I find space for questions. When I thought I would find steadiness, I find space for chaos.

So much of the world and so much of my life is yet to be lived and yet to be determined. I am still becoming - messy, beautiful, becoming. I want so desperately to have all the answers and I just don't. Not because I'm not capable enough or smart enough or brave enough for all the answers, but because there just aren't answers yet for some of the things inside of me. There aren't words to write or to say yet. They will come in process of time. Time. So elusive and so cunning. It's so much smarter than I am. I just need more time.

Goodnight, dear void.

Alone

You are my everything.
I raised you.

Don't believe you
can do this alone
because we both know
it isn't necessary
even if it's possible.

Dark spaces No light.
A vacuum wherein hope cannot remain
leaving you empty with
your feelings.

You are not alone.

Where Are You Now?

I looked for you today.
You were supposed to come rescue me--
save me from myself, but you
were nowhere to be found.

I looked and looked and
you didn't come.

I trusted you...

What am I supposed to do now? Falling in love with you was so easy, I hardly even noticed it happening. You laughed at my jokes and returned all of my phone calls. It made so much sense for us to be together. Then you left. Now what? I keep going to my phone to tell you about my day only to put it back down and walk away. It shouldn't be like this. It wasn't supposed to end this way.

Are you coming back?

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.