It's okay to be Human

Today I said three words to my husband that I never should have said. I said, "I hate myself." That was very, very bad.

Do I really hate myself? No. Do I think that saying that I hate myself might hurt my husband to hear? Yes. Did I say it because it was what I honestly, truly, wholly believe? No. Did I say it because I was emotional, and at twenty-six haven't yet learned how to deal with my bad emotions? Yes. I don't know how to deal with bad emotions. I shut down. I become a masochist.


Vince asked me, "Don't you think that's a problem? To hate yourself?" He's asked me that before, when I've told him that I don't like who I am. But something about the conversation today struck deep down inside me. It is a problem to feel this way. It's a big, big problem.

I think I write about how I feel so much, about my insecurities, because I think if I just pour it out enough it'll go away. It won't. This type of thing takes work. Vince has worked, and worked, and worked to help me, but it takes work from me. It takes a conscious effort on my part to say, "If any other person in the world came to me and told me they hated themselves, what would I say? How is that different than the way I feel about me?" (I can't take credit for that advice. It's all Vince. Vince tells me this a lot. Like I said, he has worked for me. And I haven't given him enough thanks, enough credit, for all that he does.)

I don't write this blog to get sympathy. Far from it. Sympathy will feed the beast that lives inside my head. I'm writing this because I want to see how ridiculous it is, in black and white, to say those words. I want to see the beast for what it truly is, nothing by paper and strings, so that I can start to get rid of it for good.

I am a human, and as such I have problems. But as a human, I have good things about me too.

It's okay to be wrong in a disagreement. It's also okay to be right. It's okay to say the wrong thing sometimes, or do the wrong thing, and it's okay to want to fix it, and to work on fixing it next time. It's okay to be imperfect, and it's okay to realize that your husband, or wife, or boyfriend, or girlfriend, or mom, or dad, or sister, or brother, or friend, loves you. It's okay to be loved, and to fully accept that love. It's okay to be human.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

In early November, I wrote a blog about loving myself. I won't rehash the rambling (it's just a few posts down), but it was me trying to talk myself into loving myself, despite the fact that I had all these insecurities, and self-doubt, and self-loathing built up inside of me. I thought, Maybe if I write this, confess it to the world (or, at least the people who read my blog), all of this negativity in my life will go away. Turns out, life doesn't work that way.

I've been on a kick lately, if you haven't noticed, of confessing things. I confessed that I was jealous, that I had been in evil-writer mode, that I didn't love myself the way I should, among so many other things that have been confessed verbally, or to my journal, or to Vince. Those confessions were written with multiple planned-purposes.

1. To hopefully uplift someone who may struggle with the same issues that I do. I know I can't be the only one, and maybe by ripping open these (self-inflicted) wounds, I might help someone else deal with their pain, or their issues, without having to suffer quite as much as me. 
2. By confessing, by laying it all out there for everyone to see, maybe those issues would start to heal, since they had been acknowledged publicly, and resolution had been found on the page.
3. To practice my craft (writing) in a public forum, where that craft might actually do something, other than sit stagnant in my laptop and journals.

I think I have helped a person or two with my rambles. So, check on one. And my blogs are a great place for me to practice my nonfiction, work on voice and tone. All that good nerdy stuff. So check on three. But, the confessions themselves didn't work the magic I thought they might. I still struggle. I still hurt. I still want to go on and on and on about my problems, in the hope that, by going on and on and on, they'll go away.

I realize now, that's not the way this works.

As most of these blog ideas begin, I was talking to Vince in the car. I'm a very sensitive person, and I had (yet again) overreacted to the way he had said something, which resulted in fifteen minutes of us trying to get back to normal, because I was upset, so he was upset, so we were both upset...When things leveled out (because Vince was willing to not sit there and sulk, like I was, but instead tried to find a solution for us), he told me things he thought he should work on to make our relationship stronger. In turn, I asked him what he thought I should work on.

He said, "I think you need to work on loving yourself more, so that you realize that when I say I love you, I mean. You need to understand that you deserve love just as much as anybody else."

Simple, right? So simple that I had been ignoring the truth of this statement for a long, long time. Have I always known this in my head? Of course. I was raised knowing, thanks to my loving and wonderful parents, that I was loved. They taught me that they loved me, and that God loved me. He loved me enough to send his son to die for me, and for everyone else on the planet. He loved US so much that he died for us...shouldn't that be enough to make me feel loved? This was more than enough to make me feel loved in my head. Logically, I knew that I was loved. But in my heart, in my emotional core, I don't think I've ever really believed it.

This doesn't make sense.

I asked Vince, "How do I start loving myself?" I don't know how to love myself. And he reminded me of the basic truth of my life, the truth I have known logically, and emotionally, for as long as I can remember. Every time I try to do things on my own, try to fix my life along, I mess it up. But every time I turn to God, things turn around. Now, I don't want you to think that I mean, every time I turn to God for help, everything is fixed. Far from it. I mean, every time I turn to God, things are put in perspective for me, and that starts to turn them around.

We have each been fearfully and wonderfully made.

Whenever I start to doubt that I'm worth loving, whenever I find that I can't love myself, I can continuously go back to this truth. God made me who I am, the unique individual that I am. I am not a mistake. I am not broken beyond repair (we're all broken in some way, it's part of that uniqueness). I am not wrong. God made me, and I am worth loving. If I look at my husband, my parents, my brother, my friends, I can see that I am worth loving. And hopefully, if I keep looking without, instead of relying on my brain, it'll eventually sink in and become true emotionally, instead of just intellectually. I need to turn to God, instead of myself, and trust in his love, and the love from the people around me.

The Evil-Writer: A Confession

Writers think they know everything.
Whether it's about the craft of writing, or how a story, or book, or poem impacts the world, or how someone else's writing should be. They know it all.


I say "they," even though I should say, "we," or more specifically, "I."
I'm a writer. I've been a writer since I could write, and I've wanted to be a writer since I knew what a story was. (I wrote and illustrated a book, The Golden Pony, when I was five. Should have been a best-seller, but I'm sure one of our cats ate it or used it as a mini-litter box.) I love writing. I love being a writer. I love words, and what they can do, and mean, and how they can impact or interact with the world.

And yet...

We writers are pompous.

We are pretentious.

We know everything there is to know about writing,

specifically, other people's writing.

Today I was marking-up my last two nonfiction manuscripts of my graduate career. After this class, I have a two week residency (during which I will hopefully be studying poetry), and I'm done...As I was marking things on these two manuscripts, I found myself sitting at the very tippity-top of my high-horse, looking down, and saying, "Oh, no no no. You can't use an adjective there. It needs to go here." Let me say that I really enjoyed both manuscripts I read today. They were interesting, and had great voice. I could hear their authors talking to me. And yet, the evil-writer in me was ready to tell those writers, via those essays, that I knew freaking best. 

"Don't use adverbs."

"Is this supposed to be funny?"

"This doesn't make any sense. Cut!"

"I don't get it."

"...Huh?"

Along with numerous deletions, 

double strike throughs, 

and questions that are meant to make the writer

question that sentence so much that they cut it

Why do I think my opinion about their work is more valid than their own? 

Do I think we all need constructive criticism, advice, guidance, opinions, etc, to become better artists? Of course. I love when someone reads my work and says, "This part is working, but this part needs work, and here's how I think you could do that." In those instances, I see my writing skills improving. Even if I choose to go against their advice, my work is growing, alive, changing. What I hate is when I give my work to someone, and they give it back, essentially rewritten, because their ideas are "better" than mine. Their voice is "better" than mine. Their words are "better" than mine.

This is incorrect.

As I was editing today, I found myself slipping into evil-writer mode. Self-righteous writer. Pompous-writer. Pretentious-writer. Know-it-All-writer. 

I hate that writer in other people. It makes me feel bad, makes me not want to write as much, and here I am, dishing that out to other people, instead of giving the criticism (which is only my opinion) that I think needs to be given, and also giving the encouragement that I think needs to be given. 

When did I turn into the writer that I hate?

Let's backpedal a few (or seven or eight) years...In my first creative writing class ever (at the University of Louisville), I walked into a class with high hopes, and then summarily blown into a trillion bloody bits. 

I had never been workshopped before. My parents were the only people who had ever read my work. They encouraged me to read, even when it was genre sci-fi and fantasy (my favorites forever and ever), and would fix my grammar and spelling, but they encouraged me to write whatever. 

So, when I, an ambitious baby eighteen-year-old with all my hopes and dreams riding on this class, went to the teacher (a graduate student who shall remain nameless) and asked, "Is it okay if I write sci-fi?"and she said, "Of course! Whatever you want. Be creative." I assumed that meant I could write whatever I wanted, and that I could be creative. Makes sense to me, anyway. I was so excited that I volunteered to go first. I was shaking. I remember I used a purple Uni-ball liquid pen, and I couldn't wait to start writing down everyone's ideas for my work.

And the teachers begins class by saying... 

"Well, I don't think of science fiction as literature, 

so I got nothing from this piece. 

But, if the class wants to talk about it, you guys can go ahead."

Needless to say, I was crushed. I spent the next 45 minutes trying to hold in tears, while my face turned red and my shaking grew worse. I stared at the page, took notes, and bolted as soon as class ended.

Why do I tell this story of pathetic self-woe? So you'll all pity me and understand and forgive my faults? No...Rather, to show that despite how badly that hurt me, despite how strongly it effected me (in a bad, bad way), despite my best efforts to lift people up... I have become just like her. The evil-grad-student-who-feels-justified-in-making-others-feel-bad-because-she-knows-best-writer. Ew.

This blog is my attempt at realigning myself with the values I want to have. It is a written confession of my evil-writer ways, and a promise to work hard to become the good-writer, the true-writer, the honest-writer, the I-know-I-don't-know-everything-but-here's-my-opinion-writer that I want to be. Give me your work to read, and I'll give my opinion, but I'll also value the heart you put into it, and the good, good stuff that's undoubtedly in there. I want to be the kind of person who can help other writers be better (because we can all always be better), while also encouraging them. I want to teach in a way that pushes students to stretch themselves, without pushing them over a cliff. 

Writing is beautiful. No one should be discouraged from that, especially not by the evil-writer that pops its ugly little head up when that head gets too swollen for the brain to fit alongside the ego.

You Are Who You Are (or Quarter-Life Crisis)

I want to write in order to say something. I know, that sounds redundant, but what I mean is, I don't want to just put words down, I want to SAY something with those words. Something that has meaning. More often than not, I feel like I'm repeating the same things over and over again, using different words to say those same things over and over.

I say that because I want to talk about finding a niche, finding a place, finding a spot in the pecking order, and I'm sure I'll say things I've said before. (See, I just excused the thing I'm about to do so that you can't get mad.)

This is my last full semester in school. After this, I never have to go back and pay for a class, do homework, stress about a paper not being written in time or well enough. All of that will be behind me. It's freeing to think about. And terrifying.

You might say 

I'm beginning to feel the early stages of a quarter-life crisis coming on.

It's like I'm stuck between being a really big kid, and a really little grown up. In the course of a year I'll have gone from being a young woman in school to a slightly older married woman searching for a career-job to help support her family. No longer dependent on mom and dad. On her own two feet. Finding her own way instead of waiting for someone else to tell me where to step.

It's terrifying.

But, I can handle that. I can handle the terrifying. I can handle the unknown. I can handle the transition between childhood and adulthood, as far as responsibility goes. What I'm getting stuck on is finding my niche.

I know. That sounds silly. But I can't help it.

I'm an adult and still find myself watching other girls and thinking "If I was as tall as her, or if my hair was as long as hers, or if my hair was the color of hers, I'd be good to go." Or I look at other girls and think "If I had those jeans, that hat, that shirt, those shoes, that nose, that smile, that body shape, that laugh, that anything-other-than-what-I-have, things would be easier, better."

I talked in my last blog about needing self-love, and I stand by that. This isn't so much about not loving myself (though I will admit that's part of it), but more about not really knowing exactly who I am, or want to be, or should be, yet. That person that I am changes every day, and when I feel lost (such as when my whole life is about to change when school ends and life begins) I start to rely on these superficial things to give me a direction.

I compare myself to everybody. I compare their interests, talents, physical traits, behaviors, goals, blue jeans, everything to mine, and I consistently find mine lacking.

How do we find our niche? 

How do we find our place?

How do we find out who we are?

Who we want to be?

Who we're supposed to be?

Your niche is where you are. There isn't a predetermined place already set aside for you. You are who you are who you are, and that's exactly who you're supposed to be.

Fight or Flight (or Love Yourself)

Before I get to rambling, let me set up what brought all these (possibly) incoherent thoughts on.

I think that's important.

I love my husband more than anyone, and I know that he loves me. In my life a lot of people have loved me, but he's the first that I knew loved me unconditionally, without a question. Despite this unfailing knowing, there are moments, even though we're married, that I worry that maybe he'll want to be with his ex again. Now, if you know me, and you know Vince, you might think that I'm nuts (maybe I am). But I can't shake that feeling every now and again. Despite him telling me over and over that I'm wrong, that he loves me, that he chose to be with me, and marry me, and spend forever with me, there's this irrational part of my brain that won't shut up.

Today, we ran into her twice. That should not be a big deal. Once we saw her, and just went somewhere else to avoid any awkwardness (and my potential weirdness). The second time, we were sitting in Starbucks (like usual), drinking our sugar-free mochas (we love our mochas), and she walked in.

Vince, who is just a true person, immediately begins thinking of ways to make me laugh. He jokes about breaking the window so we can run away. He laughs and squeezes my hand. He stays calm in the midst of what I see as a raging storm, and holds me in place. While he's sitting there, calm and smiling and loving, I'm shaking. My face feels hot, my ears are burning, my skin is tingling, my heart is hitting my sternum so hard I'm sure everyone in the cafe can hear it and see it. I'm shaking. I'm shaking. I'm shaking.

I was in fight or flight mode. No doubt.

He's holding my hand to reassure me and to be sweet. I'm holding his hand because, if I let go, I'll be blown away in the gale force winds that this storm (of my own creation) has just accosted me with. He's my anchor.

Vince goes out of his way to make me feel comfortable in the fifteen minutes we have before he goes on the floor to work. He makes faces, makes silly noises, gives me a kiss, tells me he loves me. And I sit there and smile at him, and shake, and think, I'm not good enough to keep him. He's going to leave me. At one point, I even said, "Please don't leave me." To his credit (because I'm clearly a crazy person), he just smiled and said, "You know that's never going to happen." Calm and sweet and just what I needed.


His ex was in the cafe for fifteen minutes, tops. It felt like hours. She didn't talk to us. She didn't walk near us. She avoided us just like we were avoiding her. Why was I freaking out?

Let's take it one step further. Even if she had come over to talk, or walked nearby. Why would I freak out? 

Do I trust my husband? Completely. 

Do I trust in our marriage? Completely. 

Do I, when I'm not in an overly-emotional, 

self-deprecating state, worry about these things? No.

So clearly, it goes much deeper.

Vince and I talked last night about my insecurities. I have a lot of insecurities. The way I look. The way I think. The way I talk. The way I dress. The talents I have, or don't have, or want but think I'll never get. You name it, I bet I'm insecure about some facet of it. 

When our was all said and done, he said, "I don't think you love yourself."

Man, that hit home. 

That struck a chord in me that I didn't know was there. Or, maybe I knew it was there, and have ignored it for years. I don't love myself. I don't like myself. I don't want to be me.

Except, there are sometimes I like me. I like me when I'm with Vince, and I feel comfortable in my own skin. I like me when he's encouraging me. I like me when he's building me up. But, only there. Never just based on a security within myself. There's something wrong with that. Not wrong with me, (which is what I would normally say, but I'm working on things, so I won't), but something wrong with that.

If I loved myself, I would know that Vince's love for me, Vince's dedication to our marriage, isn't going to be compromised by seeing an ex-girlfriend, or a pretty girl, or an alien, or anything. If I loved myself, I wouldn't feel like every time I go to hold his hand, or hug him, and he's doing something else, that he's rejecting me. (Yeah, I'm that girl.) If I loved myself, I wouldn't feel like everything I do isn't good enough. I would feel good enough if I liked myself. If I loved myself.

If I loved myself, if I had confidence in myself, I wouldn't have reacted that way today. Would it have been a little bit awkward? Of course. When things from your past are presented to you suddenly, without warning, it's awkward. But would it have been that heart-pounding, skin-tingling, shaking, red-faced freak out? No. Because that's not a rational reaction. It's not a wrong reaction (as my brother told me when I asked his advice), but it's not a rational one, either. I wouldn't have immediately thought Vince was going to leave me (which, in retrospect, is ridiculous).

I used to think self-love was selfish. That I should sacrifice everything I could, that I should find every fault I have and poke at it like a bruise, that I should never be proud of my strengths...and I'm not saying now that those things are wrong, but I'm revisiting those ideas, and modifying them.

It's important to love ourselves. 

God created us. God created me. He created me so that I would be five-five, so that I would have blue eyes that weren't quite even, so that I would want to write, so that I could love people, and make good and bad choices. He didn't mess up when he made me. If God loved me enough to create me just the way that he did, why would I hate me?

It's important to find our faults. 

It's equally important not to beat ourselves up about those faults. Should we work to better ourselves? Yes. I think we should work to better ourselves every day (and in so doing, avoid picking at other people, but that's a different blog for a different day), but we should do so in a way that is constructive, and not detrimental. I tend to pick out a flaw, and kick myself over and over and over again until I'm a bloody pile on the floor. Not healthy. Not good. We should pick out a flaw (let's say we talk about people behind their backs, without reason, frequently), and keep that flaw in mind. Instead of hating yourself for not being perfect, we should just work, a little at a time, to do better. Simple as that.

It's important not to be prideful. 

It's also important to recognize when you do something well, and not be afraid to claim it. I'm a pretty good cook. I can write a pretty good story. I'm good at craft things. It shouldn't be hard to say those things, but for me it is. It's hard to admit when I do something well. (I'm always so scared that I'll admit, "I'm good at this!" and someone will think that that's so ridiculous, that they'll point out how wrong I am.) It's healthy to be aware of your strengths, just like it's healthy to work on your weaknesses. Being prideful is something different. Pride leads us to hurt others with that strength. It's important not to be prideful, and it's equally important to admit when you do something right.

As far as I know, everyone except me knows these things. All of the insecurities bubbling within me are screaming for me to say, "but I understand why you'd think I wasn't good at things! I understand if you agree that I should be scared that Vince will leave me because I'm not good enough. I understand if you think I'm not good enough!" I only say this now so that you understand where I'm coming from more thoroughly. These are the things I'm battling. These are the unhealthy things that aren't real. These are the things born from my self-loathing, and the things that have to go.

I wish I could take credit for all of the positive stuff in here. But I can't. Vince has told me these things over, and over, and over again. He tells me every day that he loves me, and that he wishes I could love me like he does. He tells me that I do have strengths, and he tells me that he loves my weaknesses, except when those weaknesses hurt me. He hates that I don't love myself. And if it weren't for him, I wouldn't be writing this. I wouldn't be thinking this. I wouldn't be taking even this small step towards loving me.

He loves me hard enough to protect me from the storm I created today, all because of a fragment from his past. He loves me hard enough to break down my innumerable insecurities into one basic idea that, even though it's huge, doesn't overwhelm me. It's an idea I can think about and digest and work on. He loves me hard enough to tell me when I'm being silly, and to pull me back onto the calm shore where he's standing. And the way that he loves me is just a small reflection of how God loves me. The way God loves every single person on this planet. 

I don't want that fight or flight reaction to happen every time a big insecurity attacks, which is more often than I want to admit. I want to love myself so that, when the potential for that heart-pounding, shaking storm is there, I can hold onto Vince because I'm right there in the calm with him, and not because I have to or I'll be blown away.

Selfish

I want to be less selfish.
I want to quit thinking negatively about people,
especially the people who've never done anything to wrong me,
and especially the people who have.
I want to give more.
I want to love more.
I want to be a better person.
I want to go out of my way for others,
and not expect anything in return.
I don't want to want anything in return.
I don't want to want anything.

The implication here, is that I am selfish. I think negatively. I don't give, or love, enough. I expect things. I want things. That's the implication of what I said, anyway.

I don't say all of this so that someone who loves me might say, "you're not a bad person." Even though I appreciate when people try to build me up, those people that love, those people that try to make me see the good in me instead of the bad. I appreciate those people, and those things they say, deeply. But, I don't say all this in order to get that reaction. On the contrary.

I say all of this as a type of confession. I'm confessing to these wrongs in my life that I perpetuate day, after day, after day. I allow them to keep existing, because maybe I'm the only person who knows they exist. Or maybe everyone sees these things in me, and maybe everyone is just too kind, or too scared, to point them out.

I'm sorry if I've hurt you. If I've not loved you enough. If I've wronged you. If I've done things for you to get things from you. If I've not loved you enough.

I want to be less selfish, and this confession, will hopefully be my first step towards that.

The Facebook Phenomenon

Why is it that Facebook plays such a huge role in our lives?

That question has been rolling around in my head for weeks now. I've talked to people about it, in different settings, and still have no concrete answer.

I ask the question, because even though I don't want it to be a big thing to me, it is. I really would rather not care what's going on in cyberspace, but it effects me deeply. And that disturbs me. If I could come up with a reason explaining to myself why it matters so much, maybe I wouldn't be so bothered.

So let's talk about it.

Facebook is a social networking site. We all know this. It's a place where we can share information, photos, ideas, and feelings with people we might never get to see or talk to otherwise. I posted photos of my wedding so that my family and friends who were unable to make it could look at them. I recently shared a music video that my brother's band made. Without Facebook, it would have been much much harder to get the word out. I found out that my cousin is having twins, a boy and a girl, almost as soon as she found out. I've gotten to see my cousins' children grow up! These things are wonderful features that Facebook allows.

However, I've noticed in the last few years that Facebook has also become a place for people to establish themselves. What I mean by that is, people go on Facebook to show people who they are. We create profiles stating our likes and dislikes. We take photos to establish our style for the world. We state our relationship with people so that it's clear to everyone just what we mean to so-and-so. And the real kicker is, none of this information has to be true, yet, we treat it as if it were vital.

"It's not official until it's Facebook official."

I can't tell you how many times I've heard that. Before I got married, my husband and I dated for several months. It wasn't on Facebook, and people would ask over and over why it wasn't. After a while, that starts to wear on you. And for what? Why should it matter if it's represented online. Everyone knew we were together. We knew we were together. Why does Facebook get to dictate reality?

Have you ever been on Facebook, seen a nasty status, known it was directed toward you, and had a bad day because of it? Would the person who posted that status have said those words to you if you'd been face to face? Doubtful. Facebook has evolved from a great place to post digital information to share with people far away, into a place where people can bully and pry without having any repercussions.

The saddest part is, after all of this, even though I really think that what Facebook has become, is more often hurtful than not, I still check it all the time. I get excited when someone comments on something. Likes something. Posts something for me. It's a dependency on this site for human interaction. It fulfills some base need that I seem to have to be reassured that the life I'm living is okay. That the way I look is okay. That my ideas and beliefs are okay. I know how silly that sounds, but whether it's silly or not, it's the way things have become, at least in my life. I can't speak for anyone else.

I posted this blog because I want to hear ideas. I want to know what people think about Facebook, about Twitter, Instagram, Google+, texting, Klout, all of those sites where we go to communicate, to have social interaction instead of going to a store and talking to people, or picking up a phone and calling them. We hide behind screens with text and photos. What do you think about all this? Maybe, if you're confused too, we can help each other understand.

Chop Off the Monster's Head

Jealousy is an ugly thing. 

It's one of those things that creeps up on you, unawares, and yanks your feet out from under you. Then, when you're on your face, it comes and stomps on all of your fingers. It punches you, and kicks you, and insists that you hate yourself. It's a monster that you don't see coming until it's already too late.

It's weird how it works. 

Jealousy works on your soul in a way that makes you feel like less. Makes you feel inadequate, not good enough. Whatever or whoever you're jealous of becomes this untouchable things that you put yourself up against, and in the end, you always fall short. You aren't tall enough, aren't short enough, aren't pretty enough, aren't skinny enough, aren't funny enough, aren't serious enough, aren't enough. Never enough.

It's horrible,

and it will kill you, if you let it.

I have a real problem with jealousy. I find myself getting jealous of so many things. I feel silly afterward, a lot of the time, but I also still feel jealous. Whether it's of something someone has, or the way someone looks, or the amount of time I get to talk in a conversation...I get jealous for lots and lots and lots of reasons. My jealousy is like a living thing that I can't control...that sometimes controls me.

Jealousy doesn't make sense. 

One minute, you might be completely okay, happy, laughing, calm. And the next, after that stressor is introduced, you might be sad, angry, tense, scared.


In my experience, the stressor is generally self-induced. Meaning, it's something that is all in  your mind...it's born there, nourished in the soil of your insecurities, and grown into an all-consuming monster. The real kicker is, it's so ingrained as a part of us, we become blinded to the fact that only we can chop off its head.


I see this happening in my life almost daily. I had a talk with Vince, my husband, the other day. I expressed to him in oh-so-eloquent terms (that was sarcasm) that I was jealous of the way another woman looked. It wasn't relevant to anything that was happening at that moment. I just happened to look at a picture of this person, and blurt it out. "I'm jealous of Susan." (Her name isn't really Susan, in case anyone was wondering.) He asked me why, and I told him, "Because she's prettier than me." He asked what I meant by that. He asked question after question...until I realized I didn't have a real answer. I had my own opinion about what pretty was, coupled with, and based on, what the media told me what pretty was, and compounded by my deep standing insecurities about my own appearance. My jealousy, which was a very real feeling that ran with very strong emotions, was based on me--my perception of reality, and of myself.


Vince made me think about what it was I was feeling. He made me break it down so that I had to look at it in pieces. I had to push aside, or at least try to push aside, the emotions that went along with my jealousy. He forced into the light that my jealousy was stemming from my brain, from facts that weren't facts at all, but my own perception, and the only way to counteract that, was to realize that what I was believing wasn't truth, but opinion, and that that opinion was based on unreality.

He made me see that I needed to chop off the monster's head.

But I grew this monster. I fostered it. I fed it. I raised it from infancy. It was as much a part of me as my arms and legs. But it wasn't a healthy limb. If I left it there, it would rot, and eventually, it would kill me.


I don't mean to say that, because I now realize my jealousy's foundation is unstable that I can fix it all at once. That would be silly. Rather, now that I can see my jealousy for what it is, I can begin to deal with it, one insane episode at a time.


I feel myself start to get jealous.
I feel my heart start to pound,
my cheeks go red,
the tears start to well up in my eyes,
and then I think...

is this real?

Or is it all in my head?

Why do I feel this way?

Why?

And that doesn't make it go away, but that makes it manageable. That makes the monster a little bit less scary. And when the monster is less scary, you can start to fight back. After a while, that monster that's tangled itself up in your mind will be small enough to manage, and then you can chop off its head.

It won't be something that changes in a day, or a week, but I know it'll happen. As long as we remember what's real, and what isn't. As long as we stop to think about why we feel a certain way, and what we're basing it on. As long as we remember to search for truth, and to ignore the things that influence us with falsehoods. As long as we remember all of this, that monster, Jealousy, won't have any place in us. And that will be a beautiful, beautiful thing.

This isn't normal.

It starts in your stomach, like the bile is boiling and spreading into your extremities until you're tingly and hot all over. It makes your eyes well and water even if you don't feel like crying. After that's over, you might hunch your shoulders and cover your stomach with your arms, or try and cover your arms with your hands, but your hand are too small, so you just fidget, uncomfortable in your own skin.

This isn't normal.

This isn't good.

But, this is, in my experience as a 26-year-old woman, 

what it feels like to be really, really insecure.

Maybe this is just my experience of it. Maybe no one else on earth feels this way. But it can't hurt to throw it out there.


Whenever I see a girl who is thinner than me, has nicer skin, better hair, a prettier face, a more attractive body, some form of this process begins for me. It starts small, of course, maybe I just become overly aware of the part of my body that this girl's is better than. But if I don't catch it, don't stop it, it grows into this horrible, snarling monster inside me, and the bile begins to boil.

This isn't normal.

Why is it that I focus so intently on comparing what I look like to other people? It could be my best girl friend, a complete stranger on the street, or an actress. I react the same way, time and time again. I used to think it was because I was single, and doomed to singleness for the rest of my life, because there were so many more attractive people in the world that no man would ever lower himself to marry me.


Then I met my husband, Vince, and he showed me that choosing someone to spend your life with wasn't just about being pretty. He loved me because we joked, and talked, and shared pieces of ourselves that we had never been able to share with anyone else. I'm not saying my husband doesn't think I'm pretty, but I am saying he showed me that that shouldn't be the focus of a real relationship.

I thought this would fix me. 

It didn't.

I slowly slipped back into this mindset of comparing myself to every girl who passed. I wrote little notes to myself, and asked myself why I wanted to be pretty so badly. The more I talked to myself about it, the more twisted and tangled I got, until I was a mess. So I talked to Vince about it, and he calmed me down, but I couldn't shake that feeling.


Why do I feel so compelled to look a certain way? Why do I feel like I have to meet a particular standard of beauty to be worth something? Why am I a little bit scared, deep down in the irrational, emotional, animal part of me, that if I can't meet that standard Vince will magically stop loving me? Why am I so screwed up in the head?

I wish I could say I came to this conclusion on my own, but I didn't. Vince and I talked about it as we drove to Somerset today. 

The easy answer is to say that social media pounds it into our heads that we have to look this way. But why is media that way? Why is it that these ideas and standards drive women to hurt themselves by not eating, to get plastic and silicone implants under their skin, to get fat cells sucked out of one part and pumped into another? Something isn't right about that.


We weren't created to focus on the outside. Our bodies aren't bad. Loving your spouse's body, thinking he or she is beautiful, isn't bad. But focusing on that, letting that inform your decisions, your aspirations, your goals in relationships, isn't good. It isn't normal, because it isn't the way we were meant to be.


If we were meant to base everything on a look, then why would it be so easy to fall in love with someone because of the way you feel when you talk to them? Why would we be able to connect with someone on any kind of deeper level? 


I love my husband more than anyone. He's an attractive man. But I didn't decide to spend forever with him because of that. I chose him because when we talk, I feel something stir inside of me that isn't there unless we're sharing ideas, and emotions. When we're communicating in that intimate way, I feel my core reaching out to blend with his. I can only attribute that to God. 


God created us to bond with another person based on the things he put inside of us. He created us to reach out to him and communicate and blend with him with all that's inside of us, and on a smaller scale I believe he created us to have human-to-human relationships in that same way. 


A girl is "pretty" because that kind of girl is popular during that time, for whatever reason. Right now, it's based quite a bit on what's on television, in music, in magazines, in movies. But that wasn't always the case. My point is, that changes. It shifts and moves slowly over time, so that the desirable female characteristics now may not be desirable anymore in 10 or 20 years. How can it be, if something changes that quickly, that this is what we should strive for in our relationships?

That's what I mean when I say that it isn't normal.

Remember the overly emotional, melodramatic, sounded-like-someone-was-dying paragraph at the beginning? Those feelings, while being melodramatic and such, happen on a regular basis to me because of these fleeting things. Because the television has told me for over 20 years that the way I look isn't up to par, and I should feel bad about that.


I have a husband who loves me, and who makes sure I know that he loves me every day. I have a husband who isn't so wrapped up in all of this fleeting stuff that he tells me I'm beautiful, but focuses on everything else that he loves. It's really sad that even though I have that, I still feel inadequate for reasons that don't matter.


It's like our entire society has a disorder, where reality is skewed into this bizarro version of how we were meant to be. And even though I know rationally what the truth is, even though I know how unimportant looking like a television model really is, I can't shake it.

I know that God created us to be more than shells, 

more than dust. 

He created us to explore these ideas, 

these hearts, 

these connections 

without being blinded by things that don't really matter. 

It isn't normal to focus our eyes, our energies, on the mist, when the ocean is right beneath it, waiting for us to dive in. I want to focus on the ocean, to dive into substance with only a passing glance for the mist above it, because the mist will only be there a short time before it changes and is gone. But the ocean, even if it changes, will last.

Change CAN Be Good

In my last post, I talked about striving to be happy with who we are, as opposed to striving to be who we aren't in order to be happy. I mentioned, near the end, that just because I wrote about it, didn't mean I would suddenly change and be completely okay with who I am. But so far, in the last week, I have at least been more aware of the times when I want to be someone I'm not, and because of that, I have been able to curb those irrational thoughts and emotions a little more.

Strangely though, most of those times have been harder for me than before I was so hyper aware of it. As if becoming aware of it brought it into the light, and now I can't turn that light off, I can't even dim it. Now that this flaw of mine, this flaw of wanting to change myself constantly, has a big old spotlight on it, it's even harder to ignore when it creeps into my fluffy little head.

This is good, and this is bad.

It's good in that I AM aware of it now, and it isn't something that can just simmer beneath the surface and eat away at my self confidence slowly, like bacteria. But it's bad, in that now that I'm so hyper-aware of it, my OCD kicks in and I start to compound the issue by thinking, "I shouldn't think this way. I should be happy with who I am. But sometimes I DO want to change things. Is that wrong? What's wrong with me that I can't be happy with me?" And left to my own devices, I'll think myself dizzy.

In a way, even the bad is kind of good, because it's made me think about this whole thing more in depth. And while I tend to over think things a lot of the time, I think we owe it to ourselves to explore things to their fullest. That being said, here's the addition I've decided to tack onto my last post.

Should we want to be who we aren't?

No. Definitely not. I've never met someone

who didn't have at least a few really great qualities.

She we be happy with who we are?

Yes. We were made the way we are, and given the

abilities we have, and that's something pretty special.

BUT, should we work towards bettering

ourselves each and every day?

Yes. Yes we should.

To be clear, I'm not saying that I think if you go out and dye your hair, or buy a new dress, or a new car, or start acting or talking or thinking like someone else, that you're bettering yourself. On the contrary, I think those behaviors suppress the person that God created in you, and that is a travesty. What I am saying, however, is that if you have something in your life, in your heart, in your head, that is detrimental to you or the people around you, then changing THAT isn't a bad thing.

Let's say you're the girl from the last post, the one who thinks that if ONLY she could have the right hair color, her life would be perfect. This girl's flaw isn't that she wants to change her hair color, her flaw is the thing driving her to change her hair color.

Be happy with who you are,

and be ready and willing

to change the bits of you

hurt others, or hurt yourself.

I'm the kind of person who sometimes snaps at people without meaning to. They never deserve it, and more often than not, that person really cares about me. But, whether or not they care about me, I know that I shouldn't snap at them. All that's doing is hurting them, and adding to the anger in me, like little drops in a big bowl. A few won't fill it up, but if you keep adding drops, eventually it will overflow. Working to change this aspect of myself, working to be kinder with my words and to LOVE BIGGER, is a good change. It's a change that is for the right reasons.

If you change something for your emotional health, your bodily health, the health of your relationships, it isn't a bad thing. Be kinder. Eat better. Walk more. Learn something. None of these things are bad, and they're all changes...

The whole point of THIS blog, is to clarify what I mean to say in the last, and that is, don't change yourself, UNLESS you're changing things for the RIGHT reasons. As always, in my book anyway, it all comes down to love. If we love ourselves, then love others MORE than ourselves, things will be okay.

All of these changes come from love.

How can that be bad?

Who I am. Who I'm not.

Why do we always want to be what we aren't?

This thought is one I struggle with a lot, but for the last few weeks I've been struggling with it more often than not. Logically, I know that being something else won't make me happy. I know that I can't become a certain person to attain the happiness or the contentment that I need. I KNOW that that happiness and that contentment is available right this second, if I would just reach out and grab a hold of it. But illogically, emotionally, humanly, I still find myself seeing someone else, seeing what they can do, reading what they wrote, hearing what they have to say, and yearning to be more like that person in order to be complete, in order to be fulfilled.

Let me start with the idea

of wanting what we don't have,

or wanting to be what we aren't.

Here's a simple example that makes all of this easiest for me to understand. Let's say you're a brunette, and you think that if you could only be blonde, you would be happy with yourself. You think that if you become a blonde you will suddenly be beautiful, you'll be happier because you'll be more confident, people will look at you and think what you've always wanted them to think, and in all of that you'll find contentment and joy. So, you go to the best hair salon and go blonde. You look like a completely new person, and you get all the reactions you hoped for. For a few days, you're on a happy-high.

And then the new wears off.

Your blonde hair becomes the norm, and you see a girl with brown hair walk by and think, if only your hair were dark again, you could be a natural beauty like her, and then you'd be happy.

You see where I'm going with this.

That is a really simple example of what I'm talking about. We think, well, I think, that if I can only be what I'm not (thin, athletic, a great singer, a guitar player, a pianist, a painter, et cetera), if I could only achieve those goals of being the very things that I'm not, THEN I would be complete. But I hope from my hair-example that it's clear why that philosophy, that idea, is faulty.

It's easier to want to be what we aren't,

than to try and live in the fullness

of what we are,

of who we are.

I'm not thin, or athletic, or a great singer, or a guitar player, or a pianist, or a painter, but I AM a writer, a friend, a thinker, a coffee drinker, a doodler. It's easier to pick at the things I'm not and say, "Why can't this be me? What's so wrong with me that I don't live up to these things?" than to say, "This is who I am, and I'm happy about that. I'm proud of that."

I have been given all of the ingredients for happiness. I have been given a life that is my own, that is unique, to live, to experience, to BE in. And in that life, no matter what the particulars are, I have all that I need to be content. No matter what your circumstances are--and I know that some circumstances are so difficult, so hard, so painful that it's hard to breathe, let alone look at the bright side--no matter what they are, there is happiness there, even if it's very hard to see.

I want to want to be what I am, who I am.

I'm not saying that, just because I've thought about it some, and written about it some, that I'll be forever changed, but it's part of the process. To be aware of it, and to try and live and be who I am, rather than who I'm not.

Love Speaks Volumes

Generally I don't post blogs too close together, but I witnessed something today that slapped me across the face and screamed in my ear for me to write about it.

I was at Starbucks earlier (shocking, I know) and witnessed something that upset me a little. A woman's drink wasn't made to her standards, and rather than drink it anyway, or ask nicely for a new one, she insisted that the barista on bar add a shot, saying that if the barista were to remake it, she would just remake it wrong again.

It would be easy for me to sit here and write all about how wrong I think that woman was, but I won't. I can't say what's right or wrong for her, or for anyone other than myself. Instead, this event made me think about how I treat people myself.

While the woman waited for her drink to be "fixed," she looked at me and shook her head and rolled her eyes. I think she wanted me to commiserate with her, but instead I just stared straight ahead and avoided dealing with it. I was thinking, "It's just coffee.

No need to get so upset and maybe hurt someone's feelings." I was even a little upset with her for treating one of my friends with such a lack of respect. But rather than say any of that, I avoided.

I feel like, in general, we avoid things a lot. Maybe I should say I avoid things, instead of we, because I really don't want to be someone who generalizes everything in order to avoid blame or responsibility. I avoid things a lot. Especially things like that.

Perhaps I should have turned to the woman and told her off, but I don't think so. Perhaps my avoidance of her was worse than that. All I know is, I didn't handle the situation with love, and even in retrospect I'm not sure how I should have reacted.

As a follower of Jesus, I believe it's everyone's duty, whether you're a Christian or not, to love people. I don't want to tell someone they're wrong for not loving, but I do want to say that I want to love people. I want to love everyone I meet, and I want that to be clear. I want to do this because I think it's what life is really about.

However that woman acted, I should have shown her love. I showed my friend love by not talking to the woman about her drink in a negative way, but I didn't show the woman love. I ignored her, which is the same as telling her off I think.

Love speaks volumes. It heals us when nothing else can. It takes a rotten day and turns it on its head. It mends broken hearts and changes your perspective on things.

I wish that I had thought of that today for the brief moments I was in the same space as that woman. No, I wish that I didn't have to think about it, that to love her regardless of my emotions toward her in that moment was my first nature, rather than an action I decided to take. I want to love people. I think if we all loved each other, no matter what, then everything would be better.

I messed up today. But maybe because I messed up today, I won't the next time I'm given an opportunity to love someone. Whether it's in the line at the grocery store, or paying for gas, or talking to a friend, we have the opportunity to love on people every time we see them. I don't want to waste any more of those opportunities.

Timeline

My birthday was April 17th. I turned 26-years-old. 26 isn't a mile stone like 16, 21, or even 25, but it was a big milestone for me.

When I was younger, much much younger, I had a plan for myself. Graduate from college in 4 years. Get married after that, at 22 or 23. Have my first baby at 26. My second at 28. This plan seemed foolproof. For this plan to work I would have to meet the person I was going to marry, and actually marry them, in that time frame. What I failed to take into consideration was the fact that life doesn't work on a schedule. You can't just plan out these things. Life doesn't work that way.

For a long time, this really bummed me out. Every person I dated, I tried to force into the "husband" position so that my timeline would work like I wanted it to. And each time, those relationships fell apart and I was devastated because I had to start all over again. Because my timeline wasn't working out like it should.

But boy, am I ever glad that that timeline ended up being fiction.

If my timeline had worked, I would be in an unhappy marriage. I wouldn't have made the friends I've made. I wouldn't almost have my MFA. I wouldn't have taken the path that I'm on now--I wouldn't have learned what I have because of that path. I am just now, after a quarter of a century on this little blue and green planet, learning how to love like I should. Learning who I am. Learning what I want, and need, out of life. Learning what it is to live.

If my timeline had worked out, I'm sure I would find happiness. But I don't know that I would realize that, because I'm also just now learning how to find joy in everything, even if it doesn't go your way.

The path I'm on now is teaching me that, and I am so thankful to be on this path. To be in this life. I'm thankful my timeline didn't work out, and I'm thankful that I made the timeline in the first place. I'm thankful to be learning, and growing. I'm thankful for the times when those lessons are laughter and joy, and for when those lessons are tears.

On my 25th birthday, I hid from the world. I cried that I was getting "old" and that I hadn't achieved my goals. Well, I'm even older now, and on my 26th birthday, I laughed a lot. I smiled a lot. I spent a wonderful weekend with my family and friends. I felt young. I was happy. What a change a year can make on the way you view the world. I wonder what I will have learned in the next year. I'm excited to find out what that may be.

Love without Bias. Love with Wild Abandon.

Love.

I've blogged a lot about love. But as I grow, I learn more and more about what that word really means.

I think we throw the word around a lot, but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. We say, "I love that car," or "I love this weather," and things of that nature. We tell our friends, our family, our significant others, even our pets, that we love them. I've heard some people say that throwing the word "love" around isn't something we should do, but wouldn't the world be a better place if we all threw love, actual love, around more?

Love isn't an emotion. Not really. It's a way of living. A choice. A gift. To love someone is probably the greatest gift we can give, but it's also something great we can do for ourselves. I know that when I love on someone, whether it's my best friend, my mom or dad or brother, or a complete stranger, I have this peace that washes over me. And while I don't claim to have all the answers, or even a small fraction of the answers, I think I have an idea of why that might be.

Let me try to break it down for my own sense of clarity. God is love. Jesus calls us to love. God loves on us. We should love on each other.

In Matthew 5 we are told to love our enemies as well as our neighbors. What a radical notion. Love your enemies. Love your neighbors. What I think Jesus is asking us to do here is just to love, without bias, with wild abandon.

"9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us: that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 Herein is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." (1 John 4:9-11)

I think we all (myself definitely included) should be kinder to people. Should be more understanding of people. Should have more conversations with people. And not just the people we already know. Talk to a stranger, ask them about their day. I wanna have the boldness to go out of my way to love on someone just because I can. There have been times when someone has shown me kindness, and they didn't even know me, and it made my day so much brighter.

Love is beautiful. Love is wonderful. Love is a real, powerful, vibrant force. I think we should all explore it a little more.

Series

The following three posts are three things I wrote with lots of time in between. I wrote the first one a few years ago, because a boy broke my heart. And the second, because I was lonely. And the third, which I wrote tonight, is because my relationship with God is what is finally taking center stage in my life (at least, I want it to). I read them together, and realized just how active God has been in my life, and in the lives of the people around me. I realized just how beautiful his works are, and how beautiful his teachings are.

I apologize for being so wordy. =]

P.S. I put the most recent one first, so that if you only want to read a bit, you'll read that one.

The Girl

3

The girl walked. She walked and walked. And every now and again she would stop, and talk with people, or talk and experience things with people. And some of those stops, she stayed for a while, and built relationships with people. And she built relationships with boys and men, time and time again, and each time things were beautiful and magical and surreal until a certain point. And at that certain point things would go sour, and her cracks would begin in her heart.

They would start small, hairline fractures, that were almost unnoticeable other than the dull ache somewhere between her spine and ribs. Then, those fractures would start to grow, to spiderweb like a windshield after a rock hit it, until the glass, the heart, shattered. And these boys, they walked away seemingly unscathed. And the girl would lie broken in the mud, hoping she could die.

But each time, no matter how far she had fallen, no matter how much of her skin was coated with mud and no matter how many scratches she had, bleeding without stopping, He was there to pick her up, and wash her off, and carry her to safer ground. Sometimes, she would cry out to him as she fell, and he would catch her and carry her. Others, she didn't even see Him there until she was clean and safe and bandaged. And in her safe place, in her confusion, she saw Him there, waiting to hold her hand and walk with her for as long as she would let Him.

Now, it's been years. And now, she's been walking, and falling, and walking, and falling for so long that it feels like a circle. And yet, each time, He is there to hold her, to carry her, to save her, to help her. Now, finally, she is beginning to see. In the beginning, now, she goes to Him before she goes to a boy. Now, she struggles to say, "Lord, I want You first. I want You most. I want You in my heart, and in my life." She struggles to say this, because while He is perfect and beautiful and always always there, He isn't tangible. And the boys, the men, they are. But she still struggles, she reaches, she tries to reach upward, she tries to keep her eyes on the one who loves her more than any man ever can. And each day, it feels like climbing uphill without shoes. And each day, she reaches a point when she is allowed to rest and He says, "See, daughter. See how things can be with us? And I'm sorry you have to make this climb. And I'm sorry you have to hurt. But I see how this is shaping you. And I see how you are growing. And I love you. And I am here, walking with you. Each step, each twisted ankle, each broken bone, I feel with you. But when you reach the top of this mountain, when you reach the pinnacle, think of how much stronger you will be."

The girl kept walking, kept climbing, kept reaching and looking toward the peak. And in those moments when she had to rest, when she rested without that calm, in those moments when she screamed and cried to Him, begging for help, for relief, He was there. He gave her the tools she needed to patch her hurts until she reached the next plateau. He gave her the courage to keep going, even when things were so dark she couldn't see. He gave her the strength to put one foot in front of the other no matter how much it hurt.

And when she wanted to give up, no matter how painful things were, she would remember the prize at the end. She would remember why she was climbing. Not for a boy. Not for a man. Not for a tangible, fleeting goal. But because His love was being poured into her, and she wanted more than anything to pour that love back.

The Girl

1

And the girl had been looking for the boy for her entire life. In every boy she met, she stared into his eyes and wondered "Are you the one that was made for me?" And each day that she didn't find the boy, she lost hope. Until one day she fell to her knees, and cried out to the Lord.

And God spoke to her and said, "I see you searching the entire world for the boy I made for you. But there is a better way. I made a path, just for you, and I've lit it brightly, so that you no longer have to search in the dark. And you may see the road and see its length and be discouraged, but if you stay on this path, on this path that I made for you and only you, not only will the boy be there to walk part of it with you, but you will find Me in every turn."

The Girl

2

But again, because the girl was a human girl, because the girl was flawed, she forgot and lost sight.

And when the girl was alone and all her hope was gone she turned her eyes to the sky and screamed. She screamed her hurt. She screamed her pain. She screamed until her face was wet with sweat and tears and her muscles trembled likes leaves in the wind.

She screamed out to God – a single long wail like the howl of a wolf. She felt like she was dying. In that scream she begged God to help her. To save her. To fix her. She begged Him to show her how to live again.

She looked up into the sky with a throat raw like tenderized meat and saw a cloud lined in golden light. It hurt to look at, but she didn’t look away. The cloud was moving slowly and she knew that if she kept looking at that spot the sun would be uncovered and it would blind her.

At the last moment she closed her eyes and felt the sun’s heat on her face. She felt the wind on her skin. She felt the tiny drops of moisture drip off her chin and over her lips. She felt everything.

Her heart pounded in her chest, in her throat, in her fingers and the soles of her feet. Her pain was a burn over every inch of her skin.

With her closed eyes toward the sky she fell to her knees and clutched her hands to her stomach. She pressed her fists into her belly and sobbed, water from the grass soaked into her jeans, and the water from her soaked into the ground.

“Lord,” she cried, her voice cracking, “Father. Help me. I need you. I need you. I need you.”

“I am always here,” said the Lord. “I am here with you every time you smile. I am here with you every time you cry. Every breath. Every heart beat. Every hurt. I am always here with you.”

“If you’re here then why does this have to happen?” She pressed her fists into her eyes until it hurt. “Why do I have to go through this?”

“I know you’re hurting. I know you’re hurting. But I have a plan for you. I have a path for you. Fix your eyes on Me. I am always here. I am always here.

As if a blanket were placed over her shoulders the pain in her body was soothed. The pain in her heart dimmed.

“I trust you, Father.” She pulled her hands away from her eyes and let them adjust to the light. She sat again with her face toward the sky and let the sun dry her tears. She stood with damp knees. She stood into the evening with hope once again in her heart.