In the Byline

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Prayer.

I am happy here. So happy that I can make fun of the reasons my life isn't perfect because they don't matter. I am happy. Please, let me stay so lucky.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

The sliding doors open instantly, she passes through them and the cold, sterile air hits her in the face. She barely notices, making a beeline for the front desk. An exhausted looking nurse spares her a polite smile. “Visiting?” the woman asks, “What's the name?”

She says it, and it feels strange upon her lips, to speak out loud a name that for so long has only existed within her mind. The nurse glances at the computer, and with a slow, deliberate hand types the name into the blinking search bar. “Room 427,” the she replies, “take the elevator on your left, its the fourth floor...” but trails off. The girl has already gone, the sweeping end of her long skirt slipping through the closing elevator just in time.

The cheerful ping at each passing floor undermines the fluttering wings of urgency she feels within her stomach. One...In this long moment it seems that this could be any elevator, in any place, with doors that open to a different day, to what now felt like a different life. Two...she is...Three...uncomfortably aware of her heart, trying its best to beat itself out of her body. Four.

The metal cage releases her onto an otherwise empty floor, save for a push-cart that bears a barrage of old flower baskets, their blooms wilted and hanging in defeat over hastily scrawled get-well notes. You are in our prayers and You are thought of warmly in our hearts. She pauses to finger one of the notes. What does that even mean, she wonders. As if the senders were already severing emotional ties at the time of post, as if the recipient were already dead. A preemptive, even if in hindsight, not entirely unsuitable gesture.

She sets off in the direction of his room, the clacking of her strappy Prada heels rebounding off linoleum tile.

Outside a recursion of identical doors, a metal plaque reads “427.” She reaches for its handle, but stops short to stare through the tiny glass pane in its center into the vacuous hospital bedroom . He lays in a bed, his face turned away, searching for something he'll never quite find out the large window on the opposite wall. She takes a deep breath of resolution, and twists the handle.

Upon hearing the door, his head turns and his familiar brown eyes come to rest upon her figure within the frame.

The corners of his mouth stretch into a smile and in a raspy, British lilt, he whispers: “Maggie.”

Friday, November 30, 2012

The truth is I like being with you more than I like being by myself

I'm not the type to have bad days, more often than not I find a good attitude can conquer all. Last night I found myself vulnerable, scared you could see right through me, scared you saw something you didn't like.

So when today, a series of ill-timed events makes me believe perhaps nothing I could do would get me to where I thought my day was heading, I found myself vulnerable. Plans thwarted by a higher power. Alright, I'll listen. And in that moment my emotions got the best of me. This rarely happens. I hate crying, I resent this side of myself, but worse I hate crying in public. I felt it well up inside me, a part the needed to cry, for once more powerful than the part that needed to be strong. All the while arguing with myself that it could be so much worse, I excused myself into the women's room. Just two minutes. Two minutes to react, to feel more with my heart than I think with my head. And something became clear. I am so resistant to asking for help, because I think I am setting myself up for disappointment. I actually chastised myself for not being a mechanic today, so that I could have fixed my own car, or at least made my own decision. I feel I have to do everything on my own because I can't count on anyone else. Or at least, I haven't been able to count on anyone else. I resist an emotional bond, because I believe it will fail me. You see that, don't you.
You see that I'm not all powerful, that I don't have it all together, that even though I accept, and moreover anticipate, failure from everyone else, often before giving them a chance, you see that I at times fail myself and I find that's unacceptable. Today I failed myself. I broke, and a whole swarm of things came to the surface. I came home and dreamt I was in a place in my past I've tried to forget. I failed...And yet in that failure, I realized something. My vulnerability does not have to be a fault. And if I continue to let it be, I'll miss out on the beauty it has to offer. I need to accept my vulnerability as a part of me that is inherently human. Accept that sometimes my tears, my emotions, are just part of being the female gender. And maybe in that acceptance, I'll find a way to coexist with my vulnerability, and to maybe even allow myself to be really, truly, and unconditionally...loved.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

November.

No Reason to Pretend- Aaron Sprinkle

We come around
A circle meets
At last I feel I'm closer to beginning
A gentle word
A quiet heart
A soul that stirs another one to start

You'll never know dear how much you breathe
Strength and courage into me
And as the day comes closer to an end
I find no reason to pretend

When morning comes
You'll doubtless be
Awake without a worry I can see
You open up
Clearness comes
A look divides the clouds I see the sun

You'll never know dear how much you breathe
Strength and courage into me
And as the day comes closer to the end
I find no reason to pretend

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Hallelujah

What is a girl's capacity to care? to love? Sometimes it seems like it could reach the stars, endless. That white hot eternity, in the way you can only see its light from 20 years ago. And sometimes it all overflows, and whats left, ah lonely, too much to handle. If I died tomorrow, where would my life go? My paintings. My dog. My bed. My books. I've acquired a lifetime of objects, a lifetime of people, mourning the loss in my heart. I don't know when I'll see a day that I don't feel screwed up somehow. Like that doesn't make me deserve normal. My mind, so very terminal. Look around and you see minds deteriorating, the people you've loved disappearing. What is the world telling me? Am I at home in dysfunction because it takes the pressure off perfection? So this emptiness is too much for me, so this is life, bearing north and going hard? Or is this life, disappearing with every step? Or is this life, the marriage and divorce of love to a man again, to a concept, to an identity? I know what I am, who we are is truly what we are when we have nothing left. I know because I have walked out into the world and told myself I would not go back, and who was when I and nothing left, was nothing but fear.