come to me

did i tell you that i was trying to change my life. i stood at crossroads some months back and asked my friend,

do i need to move for change to happen or will change happen, then i move

she didn't know, as i did not know. so i moved. i leapt out. i went for it. and now, everything has changed. everything.

there is no going back. i never want to go back. it's good, great, getting better all the time. i'm learning what it means to live.

and so i told her everything i could. bared my soul.

then she bared hers. together we cried.

but i'm happy,

i said.

and she understood.

happiness is reason enough.

do we get to keep it, the heart treasures we unlock from stone? i believe so. sometimes, a warm breath is all it takes to defrost them. and the closeness of two bodies to melt the isolation away. sometimes, presence is all that is required. no voices. no intrigues. just heartbeats and togetherness.

this is what happiness means to me.

and soon, hopefully very soon, i will have another i love come to me again. i try not to get my hopes up, but they fly. they fly.

let it come to fruition, then i'll share. a story is better told in retrospect rather than speculation.

that which is mine will come to me, i believe this.

truth

it comes in many forms. for some, it is the unspeakable. the avoidable. the danger zone. for me, it is the fertile soil, the air i breathe. i don't know that it's right, necessarily, to speak truth as much as possible, as often as possible, but it's all i know. it is my greatest liability. and so the trend continues. i speak my truth, affirm who i am, and find myself less afraid.

it was time to tell her. she had to know. i want always and only for her to know me. and so she does. good bad or indifferent.

what does this mean, perhaps more than i understand at the moment. it's all new to me. i am green in this life. but i want to live it on my terms. to be open and honest as i can be. and her knowing was key to my moving forward.

and so she does.

what now? life goes on as before in some respects because nothing has changed. that's the thing about the truth. it is not dealing any new facts into the matter, save awareness. understanding. possibly, misunderstanding, fear, prejudice. that is always a possibility. but the risks are worth the truth, always have been in my mind.

i could not live freely if i were trying to not be who i am. the thing is, i'm always discovering something new. there is a strange confidence here, a fierce courage. and a willingness to grow. it has been so good. and i want to grow.

a girl at work told me of a trial she endures on a regular basis, i listened but was not afraid.

in my own life, on my own terms, i am going to grow. to celebrate. to discover what it means to be the woman that i am.

i trust it will be well.

and so it shall.

joy

i'm reclaiming that word. i abandoned it to people of faith, though i have faith, not in what i once had faith in, but i do have faith. faith that things will work out as they are meant to. according to the way things need to happen. i had this long conversation with a beloved about not settling for less than the best. she is uncertain that it will turn out the way it has all turned out for me.

but it must, there is no other option.

sometimes i see it all so clearly. that she won't, i won't accept less than what i need. life can deal all the cards it wants, but i'm not folding, i'm not sitting idly by, i'm not walking away until i win. there is no not winning for me.

i believe in abundance. for richness. for fertile soil of heart and mind. for myself and those i love.

you're sowing seeds of hope in their lives,

she told me.

you see them as they are. as they can be.

and that pleased me. my clarity of vision at times confounds even me. but i am trusting it more and more. not belittling myself but enlarging my territory. trusting that higher heights are ahead for myself and those i love.

grow. live. be happy. be completely who you are.

this is what i want for my beloveds. all of them.

and i want it for myself, too. that joy comes and takes up residence in my heart. that i learn how to infect people with that the way a smile passes from one stranger to the next.

yes, this is my wish.

re-entry

they warn us when we leave residency (ten days of artists doing what they do), that we're radioactive. to not make any big changes immediately, don't move to a mountaintop cabin (though i may someday), don't ask for a divorce (already did that), don't expect anyone to understand (i don't). it's hard to explain. the process is grueling really, ten twelve hour days stacked one on top of the other in many ways it feels like you're stuck in some otherworld bent on clarifying commas or unifying tenses, but on the other, there is camaraderie there. there is freedom.

it was a time of openness for me in a way i hadn't expected. i went with hedonism on the brain and that was the rule i lived by. i asked nothing more of myself than what i wanted. i, not anyone else. it was liberating, invigorating. all that. and more.

home now. i have a child underfoot, she's not a baby, but teens demand in their own way. have their own needs. sometimes more complicated, more intense than the swaddling or changing of a baby. though that is life altering in its own.

some nights i drag in near midnight, that's when i get off work, and she wants to talk, so we do. i try to keep the eyelids peeled until she's done. but it gets tough. i am not superwoman. this i've come to acknowledge only of late. i am trying to return to human expectation of self. set limitations on what i demand of my self, my body, my mind. but i've pushed the limits for so long, it feels like idleness when i sit for a moment.

i drove back down the long drive to my cottage, and the lush green, the healing sway of boughs welcomed me back. but i was not fully back, still, not fully back. it's taking me some time to reengage here. to want to be here. i'm trying, genuinely trying. i don't like hiding. i don't like not being who i am. i guess i've reached an impasse where i have to decide to be open with my life in my life, whatever that means. i have not yet decided what that means.

my favorite prof poet said to me,

your sexuality, your voice, your being is all celebratory.

which is true. all of it now is about sucking the marrow. finding delight and lingering there in the nectar laden moments. being with those i love.

i have a lot of work to do (not crazy, like last semester), and my personal intrigues will run right alongside like a junkyard dog trying to get a rise out of me. i won't let it. i will turn and face the dog and send it, tail tucked between its legs back to the junkyard. leave me alone.

i've done no more and no less than i've wanted to this point.

i've never lived like this,

i said.

i don't think i can go back, after living freely. how can you go back?

the thing is, she said,

no one is asking you to.

and that's the bottom line. she likes my mind, says

i'm too smart for my own good.

maybe she's right.

but this i know. one year more, then i will begin my dream job. i know where it is and what i want. that is half the battle. i've come to understand that about my life, when i say yes, the force it releases is beyond comprehension. to this point i've only said, not no where the job is concerned. throwing resumes at jobs i couldn't not apply for. but now, i will go after this one, this thing i want, and it will be mine. it will come to me, in fact. the way all things do. in wonder and at the right time.

i miss boston, i do. but there is much yet to accomplish here. and so here i must be. all of me.

that which is mine will come to me, i believe this.

keep your head in the game

i keep trying to remain focused on the moment. the present and not drift off into what hasn't happened, what could happen, what won't happen. all cautionary places for me, and today, there is so much. this moment is safe though, i must remind myself of this.

i guess it's the uncertainty, the not yet. what's coming. i've been wanting it, waiting for it, and find myself curiously intimidated by the joy beckoning me. as if i've stumbled into someone else's life. but that's not right. that can't be right. i have had a version of this same talk with so many people now, the being trapped is a lie talk, that i can almost recite the cadence of it without the other person saying much. which is helpful. some are reluctant to talk of such deeply personal things. if i launch off into my world as i see it talk, it is helpful to say my bit.

though there is one who disagreed, and we discussed it.

but it's not always that way, suzanne.

and i tried to explain my position more clearly. i can be obtuse. though we did agree, earlier, when i had the talk with a different soul, that the highest use of discourse is not agreement, never agreement, but communication. to say,

this is where i'm at. these are the facts of the matter. where are you?

and who wants a canned lecture on being trapped anyway. but i could use one right now. maybe i should go talk to myself in the mirror and tell myself it will be all right. that these momentary afflictions serve a purpose.

what purpose

i do not know. we cannot know until we are looking back over our shoulder at where we've been. when we manage to see how far we've come.

sometimes, i guess, i get overwhelmed by how far there is to go.

tipsy

sometimes my scales get full and i have trouble balancing them. it's not so easy when there is so much going on. but i believe it will all be well, that which needs to happen, does. that sort of thing. i had to remind myself that what i am asking, what i want is not selfish. it is not unreasonable, it is right. i was so stunned by the conversation i had to call my mom to do a, can you believe this check. it was profoundly unbelievable what was said.

she couldn't believe it either.

the good news is, my uncle is healing quite well and his strength is abundant. sometimes i think it takes a brush with death to value life. unfortunately, this is the case more often than not, i think.

now, i'm in a storm of my own making. seems i can't sit quietly on my hands when it's silent, i have to keep flipping over rocks to see what's there. usually, it ain't pretty what crawls out, but i'm compelled to look anyway.

i'm trusting that it all works out, that which needs to happen does.

and i'm believing it will all be well.

not again.

i meant to take it easy this semester, to only do my mfa and one job. but, an internship is available that i can't, really can't pass up. if i'm not going to go for it, not going to try, then why be alive. if i'm just going to take it easy, not going to get anywhere, especially now. i'm tired but i learned a lot last semester and i wonder if it was because i was pushing myself so hard, to do so much. i am wired that way, my mind wanders when i get bored. and the challenges that were coming to me were not of the variety i needed, or so i thought. perhaps i just need to do this one more thing, though next semester i plan on doing something similar. so it really isn't just one more thing, i know that even as i write it there is a bit of selfdeception, or veiled truth going on. but as i said, if not now, then when.

so, i emailed my resume early this morning with an inquiry. we'll see if i get it. if i don't, problem solved. i probably need to buy a mac though for this gig. but i would, that's how badly i want it.

i've been looking at an apartment, and hope to be able today to fill out the application. i want it. a real bedroom. a real bathtub. these are luxuries i have not had in years. my own space. a room of my own, as they say.

it's something, particularly as a marriage disintigrates to ash, that one must simply survive. i have done that for so long. i long lamented the lack of personal space. those six months of being solo were quiet, and necessary. now, my girl has been crammed in with me for the better part of a year and it's time. high time, past time we find our own way in the world.

i am certain that where i'm planning to move it the place. there is a community there, of which i flutter on the outskirts. i don't know that i will ever fully enter in, but i will, at least, be welcome to if i want. that is what matters.

all is well. i have been happy and peaceful for the first time in a great while. after court and getting sole custody of my daughter, i slept. i think the anticipation was more wearisome than i had imagined it could be.

she just won champion in her division at a horse show and i'm grateful she is finding joy too. she's worked hard for it. she's learned to accept it in small graces. and, she's learning how to let go.

it is well. it is all so very well.