At the moment I am very disenfranchised by the idea of family. Everyday the list of things I believe in grows shorter and familial love has joined the ranks with hopes, dreams, romance, and faith. My family is one big melting pot of falling apart and try as I might there is no glue strong enough to bring us together or to hold us together and I guess that's just the way life goes. My sister has willingly avoided being close to anyone in our family while basking in the glory of well-to-do inlaws. And she doesn't have to worry because her love is bought and paid for and I'm sure she is self-assured that she has bought and paid for our love and can toss us to the wayside whenever the bigger fish comes up to be fried.
I'm 20 years old, not pregnant, in college, and I have a job. Both of my older sisters got pregnant in high school, float around between employment and unemployment and toss around the idea of going back to school but the best they've gone is part-time despite the fact that at each time neither of them was working. Yet my life seems to be the one thats lacking. They both have husbands, kids, some semblance of money and both get to say a big "forget you" to me or my mom whenever our requests don't suit them.
My little sister is a sixteen year high school dropout. She's sitting at an eighth grade education and it took her failing the seventh grade twice and the eighth grade once for her to get to that dropout status. Yet she's had steady boyfriends. Has a steady boyfriend now. Gets a two hundred dollar check every month from my dads social security for doing nothing. Her and her boyfriend live in an upstairs bedroom and neither of them work. But my life seems to be the one that's lacking.
I've spent a whole month waiting to see a bunch of my best friends in the whole world. People who have seen me at my worst, who were there for me before, during, and after. Who put up with me when I'm being a pain and love me when I'm not. I've been waiting to see them, counting down the days, excited beyond all reason. And the night before my sister decides to tell me via facebook that an outing with the in-laws is more important than the request her little sister had a whole month before the day. A facebook message when she knows I don't have internet access. Doesn't text me unti maybe an hour before when it's far past impossible to get a ride to see my best friend whom I haven't seen in six months because she's been abroad. Whom I won't get to see until September because we both work and live an hour and a half away from each other. A whole day I could have spent with a whole bunch of my friends wasted because I couldn't buy my sisters love.
I guess love costs a day at Hersheypark and an evening out.
Wish I was that rich.
My chest really hurts right now so I'm either heartbroken or having a heart attack. I'll send you a note either way; one just might be from heaven.
Patchwork Prayers
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Bathsheeba
There was golden sun on golden skin
satisfaction of every lonely ache and whim
She was bathing on an open roof
She was beautiful, that's the honest truth
Golden skin became a golden sky
David was just a regular guy
She was life rushing through his veins
She was beautiful, she didn't need a name
David followed her wherever she went
He loved her long till he was well and spent
Still her beautiful voice called to him
and David fell to gypsy spells and loved again
(C.) She was bathing in the open air
acting like she didn't notice that David was there
but she was waiting, glowing golden just for a prince
she hasn't thought of anything since
Perched upon an old kitchen stool
David was her proud and personal fool
she sang to him in the lamplit room
Pleading with God that love would follow soon
It wasn't right but how could it be wrong
as the final chords pierced the empty night
still her song was swallowed by the traffic in a quiet town
She searched his eyes not sure to say what she found
Laughter filled the sky with the stars
David could never get quite too far
before gypsy eyes denied goodbye
Caught in the middle was that regular guy
(C.) She was bathing on an open stage
acting tame in her golden gilded cage
but she was waiting, glowing for love absent
She knew that David could not resist
(C.) She was bathing in the candle flame
Jealousy finally had a name
Bathsheeba knew how to string his heart
That yearning voice singing the perfect parts
David was just a regular guy
I can't compete with those gypsy sighs
I wrote this because I was trying to be subtle about an admittedly frivolous thought that was weighing my mind. At first I had trouble letting people see it because it didn't feel very subtle to me. I suppose it's because I'm such an awful songwriter. I can't detach myself from my work. I don't write songs about other peoples stories. I write about my stories. Every song is a little bit of Sam somewhere and so it's hard to let it go. If someone rejects the song is it the same as rejecting me? I struggle with that question a lot. However, if I don't tell my stories who will? My banner is all about leaving my mark on the world. If I want to make a mark I have to be willing to make the stamp as well and if that stamp happens to be inked with blood, sweat, tears, and maybe a few drops of coffee there; as I probably spilled coffee on the table I set the stamp on. Who better then me to wield it?
So welcome to the concert of my life.
Have fun in the amusement park of my mind.
Say hello to the stage crew of my decisions with that backstage pass to the prayers of my heart.
Subtle or not.
Besides the fact that the answer is not. Besides the fact that I'm about as subtle as a color-blind bull....
Please don't judge my grammer
<3 Patchwork Prayers
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Where Do Apples Fall?
Sometimes I get scared.
I'm in college. I probably should not be in college. But I am.
Why? Why am I here?
I still can't answer that. Sometimes when I am walking around campus...it hits me.
I am here.
I'm surroundeed by Dormitories, Student Centers, Academic Buildings...and students. Girls and boys who look just like me...or not like me...we're all here.
But how many of us feel like we don't belong?
How many of us look at a bank and count the pennies in our pocket? How many of us think of our houses and see little more than a roof and some walls, not much of a home. How many of us look at our families and ask
"Why am I the first?"
"What made this so hard?"
And you look back at your past and you realize everything made it too hard.
So, why are you here?
It must be a miracle.
It is a miracle.
But what happens when miracles are only as good as they seem.
When you look around the dormitories, student centers, and academic buildings.
And you don't belong.
When you look around at the students surrounding you, the girls and boys that look like you...
And you don't belong.
You wonder, do they feel like this too?
You think "I'll find home"
but home isn't there.
You're different now,
Not better,
but try convincing anyone of that.
You can't hide how you've changed,
You can't hide your experience.
So where do you belong?
Here.
There.
Does the apple fall far from the tree.
Can you let go of home because you have to if you want to belong. Do you hide when you're at home because you can't belong...
Or do you fall back into the world that didn't want you
The world you fought to free yourself from
The world that gave you a miracle.
Where do the apples fall?
I'm in college. I probably should not be in college. But I am.
Why? Why am I here?
I still can't answer that. Sometimes when I am walking around campus...it hits me.
I am here.
I'm surroundeed by Dormitories, Student Centers, Academic Buildings...and students. Girls and boys who look just like me...or not like me...we're all here.
But how many of us feel like we don't belong?
How many of us look at a bank and count the pennies in our pocket? How many of us think of our houses and see little more than a roof and some walls, not much of a home. How many of us look at our families and ask
"Why am I the first?"
"What made this so hard?"
And you look back at your past and you realize everything made it too hard.
So, why are you here?
It must be a miracle.
It is a miracle.
But what happens when miracles are only as good as they seem.
When you look around the dormitories, student centers, and academic buildings.
And you don't belong.
When you look around at the students surrounding you, the girls and boys that look like you...
And you don't belong.
You wonder, do they feel like this too?
You think "I'll find home"
but home isn't there.
You're different now,
Not better,
but try convincing anyone of that.
You can't hide how you've changed,
You can't hide your experience.
So where do you belong?
Here.
There.
Does the apple fall far from the tree.
Can you let go of home because you have to if you want to belong. Do you hide when you're at home because you can't belong...
Or do you fall back into the world that didn't want you
The world you fought to free yourself from
The world that gave you a miracle.
Where do the apples fall?
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Anthem of the All Time Low
I love this band.
Unfortunately how I discovered this band is a sad story.
My senior year of high school was racked by two unexpected deaths of kids my age. Kids I had walked the halls with, shared classrooms with, shared valve oil and science textbooks with, and all of the sudden...they weren't in my world anymore.
They were two different people seperated by 20 miles and years of my life, two different towns, two different schools, different friends, different hang-outs, different dreams. But both had all those ripped away by the same demon.
Drugs.
This blog background story is mainly about Mark.
Mark Shyda was a class clown. Major. I remember him as far back as elementary school band and he was always a laugh and a half and he would pretty much talk to anyone and make anyone laugh. He was my hero for a shy girl who kept to herself. I wanted to be him. He just had all the confidence in the world. Even when the teachers reprimanded him for being obnoxious and distracting he would look remorseful for all of a minute and then brush it off and go back to being MArk.
Last time I saw him was middle school but he was still zany and confident and completely unaffected by authority reprimanding him for being so sociable. Okay, okay, sometimes--as funny as he was--you wanted to tell him to shut up so you could accomplish something. But he was Mark Shyda.
He was also a trumpet player which is why I knew him. He wasn't the greatest trumpet player in the world. In fact, he was usually on the simple parts and even those weren't that great. I think he just wasn't so much a band geek as he was a music buff. I don't think he really practiced he just played. Trumpet wasn't his life so I suppose he was okay with just being the part that everyone says is important but no one in middle school really notices.
So, I, being a more serious player didn't have all that much contact with him. Plus I was one of two female trumpet players so I would try to seek out Lauren (the other female player) or my friends from my elementary school but when you are all set up you interact with the kids around you.
Also one year of middle school they changed the composition of players and instead of segregating players they gave each player a multitude of parts so I ended up being stand partners with Mark.
But we weren't really friends and I moved to a different town where I started high school and I never really thought about the kids from my past except that I missed them despite my middle school years being really awful in every way. Puberty, family, school, and a general sense of being completely lost in the world. But I found God again and high school was four years of contentment if nothing else. I was fairly okay with who I was.
Senior year. I have to memorize and perform a scene for my Shakespeare class and it's the night before and I'm so confident. I love A Midsummer Night's Dream and I love Helena's monologue on "Injurious Hermia" that I had performed and this day we had to have memorized Puck's closing speech. Little did I know how much I would want that speech to be the truth.
That day during my Journalism class I had finished my work early and I was ahead on my yearbook layout project so I snuck onto a news site and a headline caught my eye.
My hometown?
Accident?
Death?
Boy my age?
My old school?
Oh no.
I clicked because I needed to know. The life that had seemed a lifetime away had finally come rushing back to me. And I was 12 years old again. I was that insecure little girl idolizing the class clown all over again. But the clown would never make another little girl laugh again. But he did make a young woman cry.
That night I lay in bed with my radio on low and "The Water is Wide" came one and I jsut started sobbing. The rendition was haunting and angelic coupled by my shock finally break. My sister got angry for being unable to contain the sobs which jsut grew obnoxiously loud and racking and told me "She was glad one of my friends had died" which just made me hurt more because not only was he dead but my sister had no respect that there was one less person in the world and that I was hurting.
I broke down again in my Shakespeare class and my teacher took me aside. He told me the story about how the girl he had taken to prom had died in a car accident as well. And how he remembered life just kind of stopping. He let me off the hook for the speech that day and we commiserated awhile before the bell rang but he really helped me get through the rest of the day. But all the while I wondered if kids in the next town over where having as hard a day as I was. After all they were the kids that Mark had seen everyday.
Okay we weren't friends but we had talked. We had shared moments of friendship; kids are friends with everyone. We grumbled practicing, tossed about valve oil from one player to another, shared stands, lunch space, and classrooms. We passed by each other in hallways, shared volleyball courts, and a sticker board in the band room.
But in one night all of that was erased.
Mark was gone.
And four years later I was missing the class clown who had made trumpetline a riot.
We weren't friends but I was human, and he was human,
and he was dead.
Hopped up on who knows what he went speeding down a road prone to accidents and drove his car right under a truck.
Five kids were in the car.
Four survived.
Mark didn't.
It was crazy.
How could someone so full of life not be a part of this worl anymore?
Who would be there to make people laugh now?
I still haven't really accepted that Mark isn't in this world anymore. I stumble across pictures from, what now, seems like forever ago and he still looks so real. So alive. I can't believe that all he is now is photographs across a hundred houses. memories in small world of people priveleged to have met him, and a facebook memorial page.
Which brings me to All Time Low.
The memorial movie for Mark is full of All Time Low. Now I didn't just watch it and go "Oh that's good music" now I bawled like a girl who lost her puppy. I don't cry a lot but when I do it's pretty much the lossening of the dam and I just cry for all the sadness in the world. I want to take on all the pain so that no one else has to hurt. But I'm not Jesus so I can't really do that but it doesn't stop me from trying.
A year after his death I watched the movie as kind of a moment of respectful silence for the loss the world must feel not having Mark in it. And I just listened for a moment. The music seemed so haunting. I wanted to keep it with me. I'm not some morbid girl who focuses on death but if I listen to All Time Low..maybe it keeps a little bit of Mark alive in the world.
You know?
Maybe it's crazy but it was my thought process at the time.
Like an ever-going memorial to living life in general and living to the fullest. Smiles and laughter even if there is no happy ever after to the story.
The two songs I remember really catching my heart were "Therapy" and "Lullabies".
I started listening to them again the other day. I don't know why but all the sudden the band name popped into my mind and the first song that caught my eye again was "Therapy" and suddenly I saw my life flashing before me. All my mistakes, all the lies, all the pain, the few and far between times that could be considered good, the anger, the hate, the constant disappointment, the search to keep God at the center of my life when I never stayed in one place long enough to find out where the center of my life really was.
Here's and excerpt from "Therapy"
When I woke up alone
I had everything
A hand full of moments
I wished I could change
and a tounge like a nightmare
That cut like a blade
In a city of fools
I was careful and cool
but they tore me apart like a hurricane
A hand full of moments
I wished I could change
but I was carried away
Give me therapy
I'm a walking travesty
But I'm smiling on everything
Therapy you were never a friend to me
and you can keep all your misery
My lungs gave out
as I faced the crowd
I think that keeping this up can be dangerous
I'm flesh and bone
I'm a rolling stone
And the experts say I'm delirious
Give me therapy
I'm a walking travesty
But I'm smiling on everything
Therapy you were never a friend to me
and you can take back your misery
Arrogent boy
love yourself so no one has to
They're better off without you
(They're better off without you)
Arrogent boy
Cause a scene like your supposed to
They'll fall asleep without you
You're lucky if your memory remains
I just listened to this song on loop: over and over and over. And I see my life. And I can't change it. What good is Therapy anyway? Sure for an hour you get to drop all your problems at the feet of someone else but then you saddled them back on your back when the hour is up and you walk out the door feeling the burden more than ever because for one sweet hour you got to taste freedom.
Freedom is taken away so you're bitter, you're angry, and sometimes you say stuff you don't mean. The sharps words and the tongue that belongs in nightmares. Words that are meant to cut away at someone's pride, to take them down for things that they can't change either...death or goodbyes.
That next little excerpt is really the story of my life. I am the poster child for "the city of fools" as much as John Winthrop is for the American dream of being "a city on a hill". I can't escape this word, this referance, this feeling. I did some pretty stupid things this year. Some of them I don't regret at all. There isn't much I won't do to make someone smile. If I need to dance like an idiot or make funny faces, or generally be a goofball to make someone feel better or smile for just a moment. I absolutely will. I live to make people laugh and smile. And when I can accomplish that it makes me really happy too. My "Sir Toby face". And then there is the selfish fool. My "Malvolio" tendancies--
Self-love
Wanting more than I have and trying to persuade God that he wants them for me as well.
I can be a clam-shell. There is one person in this world who knows about my past. Just one person that I'm not related to that knows all the awful things that made me determined to be the person I am today. I can't open up. The things I've been through just taught me that trust is a luxury that no one can afford and certainly not a girl like me. So I never risk it.
My best friend of four years who was there through band camp, vacations, crushes, and school dances and football games has no idea. I don't know why I opened up to this girl but I came to college and found someone who I trusted. A girl with a story kind of like mine. A girl who knew what it was like to be...us. It took me half a year but my life came spilling out.
But I wanted more.
I had found trust but I wanted to find love as well. I found someone else who seemed to inspire trust and I thought...this person whom I shouldn't trust at all...I do. It took awhile but I wondered if maybe there was a reason why I could trust this person. I was the "City of fools". I trusted far too easily that time around.
I wondered why I wasn't just "cool" and this person was my proverbial hurricane. I wish I could take back the trust, the contentment, the childish innocence, the rose-colored glasses, the easy ability to totally attach myself to them in public. I wish I could go back and change it all and be the distant cynic I had always been. The girl who didn't trust, who weighed the risks, who found comfort in herself.
"Carried away"
How I despise the words. I got really carried away because I was sure God was at hand somewhere. Why else would I have tossed my lifelong inhibitions to the wind? Why else would I willing set up camp in this "city of fools".
That person was my "therapy". I forgot about how bad my life had been. How dysfunctional my family was. How much I was wary of people because people had always betrayed me in the past. I forgot how much I wanted to hide for fear someone would see the real me. The "walking travesty" who smiled to make sure no one would ever ask questions about where I came from or where I had been. But "therapy" ends and you shoulder all those burdens again and you might even be stuck with more--the failure of "therapy".
Who can help you now?
God, is there.
But Adam had Eve, Abraham had Sarah, Joseph had Asenath.
I'm almost 19 and I still sleep with a teddy bear. I like tangible things. My family wasn't affection or affirming. I had to find it elsewhere. God is amazing and I do believe that I can feel him. I can feel him in my heart and there are times where I know he is holding me.
But I'm human and sometimes when you reach out you want to see the hand that you are reaching out to, too be able to touch what is embracing you. But sometimes I really wish I had never reached out to "therapy". I want to bottle everything back up. I want to take it all back. Rewind. Skip the scene. Edit out. Pan left and forget.
I keep smiling to the crowd, at least I am really trying to, sometimes I give into indulgence and I read some stupid magazine. Confidence is the key. No one will like you if you're sad or if you complain. That's all I get. I need to be perfect or no one will ever love me.
But I can't be perfect.
I'm not supposed to be perfect.
Man falls. Man sins. Jesus was the absolution.
I need to live in a Christ-like manner but God knows I'm not perfect.
So why is this magazine telling me no one will love me if I'm not perfect and happy and smiling and carefree and funny and beautiful all of the time. And why do I believe it? Why do I think that the only way people will like is if I never disagree with them, if I never admit I need help, if I never admit that I have problems, if I never show that I'm human, that I cry, that I hurt, that I despair even when I know that I have an Awesome God who is always there.
I go crazy never confronting people. I grow crazy being the pushover. I hate being the wallflower but I'm afraid if I stand up, if I have opinions, if I confront; that I'll just be left in the dust. I don't confront often but when I do I go all out. I leave no stone unturned, no ego unbruised, no pride unbroken, no heart unshaken. I want to shoulder the world's pain but when I hurt so much I wonder "Why aren't other people hurting so much too?" I think about how little happiness I really find and wonder "Why do they get to be so happy? Why can't they choke on this misery for a little bit and let me have their life?"
I'm flesh and bone I'm a rolling stone. I've lived in ten or so different "houses" and houses is a very liberal term. In 18 years. I've gone to two different school districts. I've lost so many friends because of my beliefs. I've lost friends because I would reach out to kids they didn't approve of and they would leave me behind. I don't have a home. I don't have much left from childhood. We would move too much to keep anything. I have no mark. No identity. Nothing to say "I was here".
I want to mean something to people. I want to be important to someone. I want someone to remember that "I was there". I keep searching to mean something but so far everyone seems content with Sam being a shadow that comes about to incite a laugh or two before drifitng back to semi-existence. I join clubs and groups like crazy so that people will see me, people will notice me, people will remember me.
Don't get me wrong I do it because I want to and because I want to further God's word but fellowship means a lot to me. Being with people is a huge part of my faith. Surrounding yourself with people who will keep you strong with God.
Everyone tells me I do too much. I need to take some time off from being so busy. But busy is good for me. Busy makes me feel like I'm accomplshing something. If I'm busy and someone notices it means that someone knows my name. Someone remembers me.
But I fail in cultivating relationships department. I've tried and failed twice and no one has ever shown exclusive interest in me.
So I'm a smiling travesty determined to never show her flaws to another peson again because her flaws are what got her into the mess and what totally ruined her emotional being.
But I hear this song again and I think of Mark.
Of how he lived.
And then I feel like a selfish fool.
Mark will never walk down another street, Mark will never drink another milkshake, Mark will never make another person laugh, Mark will never dress up for a night out, or pull a dirty shirt off the floor and give it a whiff before deciding it can handle one more day of wear.
Who am I to not live?
I have the whole world in front of me.
Who will live for me if I don't live for myself?
No one.
Who will they call "Switzerland" in a squabble? Who will they look to for a musical reference? Who will they call when they need a book? Or just someone who likes listening to others talk and trying so hard to help them so that even when her life sucks she can make a difference in someone else's and make sure there is one more smile in the world even if it can't be hers.
Even if I am a "walking travesty" in a "city of fools" it's my job to live, to seek, to be.
I can only be "me".
No matter how messed up "me" might be.
"Me" might being wary of people, might fall for arrogant boys, might leave the move theatre to avoid watching the characters fight.
But I'm the only "me" in this world.
So bring on the cynics, misogynists, and arguments.
Excerpt from Lullabies
Make it a sweet, sweet goodbye - it could be for the last time and it's not right.
"Don't let yourself get in over your head," he said.
Alone and far from home we'll find you...
Dead - Like a candle you burned out;
spill the wax over the spaces left in place of angry words.
Scream - To be heard, like you needed any more attention;
throw the bottle, break the door, and disappear.
Sing me to sleep, I'll see you in my dreams, waiting to say, "I miss you. I'm so sorry."
Forever's never seemed so long as when you're not around it's like a piece of me is missing.
I could have learned so much from you but what's left now?
There is just so much and too much I could say.
I hate goodbyes so much. I think it was because I was struck by the finality of goodbye when I was really young. Within a year of turning seven about nine people of my family or close friend sphere died. And many of them where people who meant a lot to me.
My grandfather; the one man in the world who I loved beyond all measure and I knew loved me and cared about me and would protect me. He was a gruff guy but he spoiled me rotten to the core. And all the sudden he would never be there to love or protect me again.
My Sunday School teacher/Pastor's wife, Jewel: If her name wasn't enough to clue you in on how amazing she was, well, if ever there was an angel God sent to earth it was this woman. She loved everyone and everyone loved her and there wasn't a thing she wouldn't do for her family, her congregation, or the kids in her class.
I lost so many people in my life when I was really little and many unexpectedly. My grandfather had heart problems but he had recovered and he had come home from the hospital and was taking it easy at home.
I just remember the last time I saw him. I remember making him read just about every book he had at his house. Over and over. I snuggled close. I settled in. I listened to the sound of his voice. I held onto his flannel shirt. I listened to his heart and
the rumble of his chest with each word. And I never wanted to leave. Maybe I knew as my mom came to pick me up and I fought to stay. Maybe I knew the next day my grandfather would find himself in the hospital again. Maybe I knew I would never see him again. So I thought if I just never let him out of my sight then he won't be able to leave me.
My mom tells me I helped to set up for the viewing but I remember not going to the funeral. I remember not wanting to go. Because no matter how long I kept my grandfather in my sight eventually they would take him away.
Jewel. All she was doing was vacumming the basement stairs and she tripped on the cord. She took a tumble and hit her head, fell unconcious, and bled to death in her brain. One day she was so alive, just a pastor's wife taking care of household chores, and the next she was brain dead on life support.
I hate goodbyes. Even more I hate goodbyes knowing that the person is still out there but there is nothing you can do to bring them back. Friends, family, anybody. They are still living but you aren't a part of their life anymore and they don't want to be or can't be a part of yours.
But sometimes I get a little crazy and clingy in my attempt to avoid goodbyes. Sometimes I freak out if I don't talk to someone everyday. Sometimes I think "What if they just leave? What if they are sick of me? What if they forget that we were friends?"
And the pain and the worry really make me burn out alot on the friend/relationship scale. Angry words seem to be the story of my life right now. I hate inviting myself but I'll do it but I want to be invited and when I'm not invited I get angry because I wasn't invited and I wasn't assured to invite myself. I know there have been plenty of times that my friends have hung out without me and didn't tell me they would all be together. So there I wasn't invited but I didn't even have the knowledge of a hang-out to invite myself along with and then I just get so mad. I'd rather be a fifth wheel then not part of the ride at all.
I do an awful lot of "screaming". I play the diva, the drama queen, I make things a big deal. Because I want someone to see me. But then I'm just seen as the dive, drama queen and I guess that isn't attractive, I guess that isn't what gets you the right attention. It just makes you the reformation project. Enter feeling like a fool. I just feel now that if I'm not stoic and strong then no one will want me. Because apparently admitting you throw some tantrums, and you cry, and you get mad about petty things sometime just makes you socially inept. And you just get "nice guys" looking to save the world one pathetic wanna be adult at a time.
I want a "just me" person and I want to know that my friends want me around when they want everyone else around. I know it's my insecurities that I work through but "next time" needs to be thrown out of the english language.
Seriously.
I haven't slept well all summer because at night all my thoughts come crashing down on me. About friends, about love, about family, about living. I was ready to throw my bears away the other night, rip all the notes out of my devotionals, toss my prayer journal out in the cold (or heat).
Once again, I just want the last year and a half to be a really bad dream.
My dad was in rehab, My parents seperated, my dad moved out, my dad is one a billion different medications because his body is shot, my dad moved to Oregon, my mom kind of semi-kicked me out, my friends have changed dynamically from high school to college, and just from one semester to the next at college, and I failed epically at steering the love boat. And now we are moving and despite the fact that my life was pretty much boxed up when I went to college and disperesed between my sister and my grandma's house. I have to pack my life all over again. Move to another cold unfeeling house that once again won't be a home. We have to get rid of the cats and the dog to move into the house that my mom put a down payment.
No marks, no traces of this life, start all over again, new town, new people, new house, same old problems.
And I ended the year on the note of completely crushed self-esteem and securities. And not believing in people all over again.
I have crazy dreams about things I shouldn't be dreaming about. I'm in over my head. They just won't go away. Having a loving family, having that tight-knit group of friends, being in loved and being loved. Rewinding to save my friendship or stop in from happening at all. Falling in love all over again with someone I know is really just out to break my heart.
But I miss the naivety.
I miss being happy.
For three months I was so happy.
And one week brought it all crashing down.
And it's a sweet dream that leaves me with a painful cavity I live with everyday for right now.
All this because of one desperate attempt to live because I've seen so much so recently about how life is just taken away.
Because Mark (and Michelle) dying really made me want to live. Mark died on May 4. May 7th I probably made the most foolish move of my young adult life. My biggest regret so far in adulthood and college.
The week that I hit the crash lane I had a talk about death and the afterlife with my friends Josh and Kayla which brought this all back to me again.
This fear of not living.
Of being afraid to live.
But fear makes people reckless.
It sure made me reckless.
And sometimes I miss being afraid to be afraid.
That glorious period where I just existed.
Where I forgot about leaving a mark because I felt like I had found a place.
Now living is living through these thoughts, these desperate wishes, this ravenous desire to find contentment again. To find my confidence. To find my courage.
Because now instead of being afraid of not living is my last worry.
Now I think I'm afraid to live.
Because to live means to say goodbye.
....and I really hate goodbyes.
Unfortunately how I discovered this band is a sad story.
My senior year of high school was racked by two unexpected deaths of kids my age. Kids I had walked the halls with, shared classrooms with, shared valve oil and science textbooks with, and all of the sudden...they weren't in my world anymore.
They were two different people seperated by 20 miles and years of my life, two different towns, two different schools, different friends, different hang-outs, different dreams. But both had all those ripped away by the same demon.
Drugs.
This blog background story is mainly about Mark.
Mark Shyda was a class clown. Major. I remember him as far back as elementary school band and he was always a laugh and a half and he would pretty much talk to anyone and make anyone laugh. He was my hero for a shy girl who kept to herself. I wanted to be him. He just had all the confidence in the world. Even when the teachers reprimanded him for being obnoxious and distracting he would look remorseful for all of a minute and then brush it off and go back to being MArk.
Last time I saw him was middle school but he was still zany and confident and completely unaffected by authority reprimanding him for being so sociable. Okay, okay, sometimes--as funny as he was--you wanted to tell him to shut up so you could accomplish something. But he was Mark Shyda.
He was also a trumpet player which is why I knew him. He wasn't the greatest trumpet player in the world. In fact, he was usually on the simple parts and even those weren't that great. I think he just wasn't so much a band geek as he was a music buff. I don't think he really practiced he just played. Trumpet wasn't his life so I suppose he was okay with just being the part that everyone says is important but no one in middle school really notices.
So, I, being a more serious player didn't have all that much contact with him. Plus I was one of two female trumpet players so I would try to seek out Lauren (the other female player) or my friends from my elementary school but when you are all set up you interact with the kids around you.
Also one year of middle school they changed the composition of players and instead of segregating players they gave each player a multitude of parts so I ended up being stand partners with Mark.
But we weren't really friends and I moved to a different town where I started high school and I never really thought about the kids from my past except that I missed them despite my middle school years being really awful in every way. Puberty, family, school, and a general sense of being completely lost in the world. But I found God again and high school was four years of contentment if nothing else. I was fairly okay with who I was.
Senior year. I have to memorize and perform a scene for my Shakespeare class and it's the night before and I'm so confident. I love A Midsummer Night's Dream and I love Helena's monologue on "Injurious Hermia" that I had performed and this day we had to have memorized Puck's closing speech. Little did I know how much I would want that speech to be the truth.
That day during my Journalism class I had finished my work early and I was ahead on my yearbook layout project so I snuck onto a news site and a headline caught my eye.
My hometown?
Accident?
Death?
Boy my age?
My old school?
Oh no.
I clicked because I needed to know. The life that had seemed a lifetime away had finally come rushing back to me. And I was 12 years old again. I was that insecure little girl idolizing the class clown all over again. But the clown would never make another little girl laugh again. But he did make a young woman cry.
That night I lay in bed with my radio on low and "The Water is Wide" came one and I jsut started sobbing. The rendition was haunting and angelic coupled by my shock finally break. My sister got angry for being unable to contain the sobs which jsut grew obnoxiously loud and racking and told me "She was glad one of my friends had died" which just made me hurt more because not only was he dead but my sister had no respect that there was one less person in the world and that I was hurting.
I broke down again in my Shakespeare class and my teacher took me aside. He told me the story about how the girl he had taken to prom had died in a car accident as well. And how he remembered life just kind of stopping. He let me off the hook for the speech that day and we commiserated awhile before the bell rang but he really helped me get through the rest of the day. But all the while I wondered if kids in the next town over where having as hard a day as I was. After all they were the kids that Mark had seen everyday.
Okay we weren't friends but we had talked. We had shared moments of friendship; kids are friends with everyone. We grumbled practicing, tossed about valve oil from one player to another, shared stands, lunch space, and classrooms. We passed by each other in hallways, shared volleyball courts, and a sticker board in the band room.
But in one night all of that was erased.
Mark was gone.
And four years later I was missing the class clown who had made trumpetline a riot.
We weren't friends but I was human, and he was human,
and he was dead.
Hopped up on who knows what he went speeding down a road prone to accidents and drove his car right under a truck.
Five kids were in the car.
Four survived.
Mark didn't.
It was crazy.
How could someone so full of life not be a part of this worl anymore?
Who would be there to make people laugh now?
I still haven't really accepted that Mark isn't in this world anymore. I stumble across pictures from, what now, seems like forever ago and he still looks so real. So alive. I can't believe that all he is now is photographs across a hundred houses. memories in small world of people priveleged to have met him, and a facebook memorial page.
Which brings me to All Time Low.
The memorial movie for Mark is full of All Time Low. Now I didn't just watch it and go "Oh that's good music" now I bawled like a girl who lost her puppy. I don't cry a lot but when I do it's pretty much the lossening of the dam and I just cry for all the sadness in the world. I want to take on all the pain so that no one else has to hurt. But I'm not Jesus so I can't really do that but it doesn't stop me from trying.
A year after his death I watched the movie as kind of a moment of respectful silence for the loss the world must feel not having Mark in it. And I just listened for a moment. The music seemed so haunting. I wanted to keep it with me. I'm not some morbid girl who focuses on death but if I listen to All Time Low..maybe it keeps a little bit of Mark alive in the world.
You know?
Maybe it's crazy but it was my thought process at the time.
Like an ever-going memorial to living life in general and living to the fullest. Smiles and laughter even if there is no happy ever after to the story.
The two songs I remember really catching my heart were "Therapy" and "Lullabies".
I started listening to them again the other day. I don't know why but all the sudden the band name popped into my mind and the first song that caught my eye again was "Therapy" and suddenly I saw my life flashing before me. All my mistakes, all the lies, all the pain, the few and far between times that could be considered good, the anger, the hate, the constant disappointment, the search to keep God at the center of my life when I never stayed in one place long enough to find out where the center of my life really was.
Here's and excerpt from "Therapy"
When I woke up alone
I had everything
A hand full of moments
I wished I could change
and a tounge like a nightmare
That cut like a blade
In a city of fools
I was careful and cool
but they tore me apart like a hurricane
A hand full of moments
I wished I could change
but I was carried away
Give me therapy
I'm a walking travesty
But I'm smiling on everything
Therapy you were never a friend to me
and you can keep all your misery
My lungs gave out
as I faced the crowd
I think that keeping this up can be dangerous
I'm flesh and bone
I'm a rolling stone
And the experts say I'm delirious
Give me therapy
I'm a walking travesty
But I'm smiling on everything
Therapy you were never a friend to me
and you can take back your misery
Arrogent boy
love yourself so no one has to
They're better off without you
(They're better off without you)
Arrogent boy
Cause a scene like your supposed to
They'll fall asleep without you
You're lucky if your memory remains
I just listened to this song on loop: over and over and over. And I see my life. And I can't change it. What good is Therapy anyway? Sure for an hour you get to drop all your problems at the feet of someone else but then you saddled them back on your back when the hour is up and you walk out the door feeling the burden more than ever because for one sweet hour you got to taste freedom.
Freedom is taken away so you're bitter, you're angry, and sometimes you say stuff you don't mean. The sharps words and the tongue that belongs in nightmares. Words that are meant to cut away at someone's pride, to take them down for things that they can't change either...death or goodbyes.
That next little excerpt is really the story of my life. I am the poster child for "the city of fools" as much as John Winthrop is for the American dream of being "a city on a hill". I can't escape this word, this referance, this feeling. I did some pretty stupid things this year. Some of them I don't regret at all. There isn't much I won't do to make someone smile. If I need to dance like an idiot or make funny faces, or generally be a goofball to make someone feel better or smile for just a moment. I absolutely will. I live to make people laugh and smile. And when I can accomplish that it makes me really happy too. My "Sir Toby face". And then there is the selfish fool. My "Malvolio" tendancies--
Self-love
Wanting more than I have and trying to persuade God that he wants them for me as well.
I can be a clam-shell. There is one person in this world who knows about my past. Just one person that I'm not related to that knows all the awful things that made me determined to be the person I am today. I can't open up. The things I've been through just taught me that trust is a luxury that no one can afford and certainly not a girl like me. So I never risk it.
My best friend of four years who was there through band camp, vacations, crushes, and school dances and football games has no idea. I don't know why I opened up to this girl but I came to college and found someone who I trusted. A girl with a story kind of like mine. A girl who knew what it was like to be...us. It took me half a year but my life came spilling out.
But I wanted more.
I had found trust but I wanted to find love as well. I found someone else who seemed to inspire trust and I thought...this person whom I shouldn't trust at all...I do. It took awhile but I wondered if maybe there was a reason why I could trust this person. I was the "City of fools". I trusted far too easily that time around.
I wondered why I wasn't just "cool" and this person was my proverbial hurricane. I wish I could take back the trust, the contentment, the childish innocence, the rose-colored glasses, the easy ability to totally attach myself to them in public. I wish I could go back and change it all and be the distant cynic I had always been. The girl who didn't trust, who weighed the risks, who found comfort in herself.
"Carried away"
How I despise the words. I got really carried away because I was sure God was at hand somewhere. Why else would I have tossed my lifelong inhibitions to the wind? Why else would I willing set up camp in this "city of fools".
That person was my "therapy". I forgot about how bad my life had been. How dysfunctional my family was. How much I was wary of people because people had always betrayed me in the past. I forgot how much I wanted to hide for fear someone would see the real me. The "walking travesty" who smiled to make sure no one would ever ask questions about where I came from or where I had been. But "therapy" ends and you shoulder all those burdens again and you might even be stuck with more--the failure of "therapy".
Who can help you now?
God, is there.
But Adam had Eve, Abraham had Sarah, Joseph had Asenath.
I'm almost 19 and I still sleep with a teddy bear. I like tangible things. My family wasn't affection or affirming. I had to find it elsewhere. God is amazing and I do believe that I can feel him. I can feel him in my heart and there are times where I know he is holding me.
But I'm human and sometimes when you reach out you want to see the hand that you are reaching out to, too be able to touch what is embracing you. But sometimes I really wish I had never reached out to "therapy". I want to bottle everything back up. I want to take it all back. Rewind. Skip the scene. Edit out. Pan left and forget.
I keep smiling to the crowd, at least I am really trying to, sometimes I give into indulgence and I read some stupid magazine. Confidence is the key. No one will like you if you're sad or if you complain. That's all I get. I need to be perfect or no one will ever love me.
But I can't be perfect.
I'm not supposed to be perfect.
Man falls. Man sins. Jesus was the absolution.
I need to live in a Christ-like manner but God knows I'm not perfect.
So why is this magazine telling me no one will love me if I'm not perfect and happy and smiling and carefree and funny and beautiful all of the time. And why do I believe it? Why do I think that the only way people will like is if I never disagree with them, if I never admit I need help, if I never admit that I have problems, if I never show that I'm human, that I cry, that I hurt, that I despair even when I know that I have an Awesome God who is always there.
I go crazy never confronting people. I grow crazy being the pushover. I hate being the wallflower but I'm afraid if I stand up, if I have opinions, if I confront; that I'll just be left in the dust. I don't confront often but when I do I go all out. I leave no stone unturned, no ego unbruised, no pride unbroken, no heart unshaken. I want to shoulder the world's pain but when I hurt so much I wonder "Why aren't other people hurting so much too?" I think about how little happiness I really find and wonder "Why do they get to be so happy? Why can't they choke on this misery for a little bit and let me have their life?"
I'm flesh and bone I'm a rolling stone. I've lived in ten or so different "houses" and houses is a very liberal term. In 18 years. I've gone to two different school districts. I've lost so many friends because of my beliefs. I've lost friends because I would reach out to kids they didn't approve of and they would leave me behind. I don't have a home. I don't have much left from childhood. We would move too much to keep anything. I have no mark. No identity. Nothing to say "I was here".
I want to mean something to people. I want to be important to someone. I want someone to remember that "I was there". I keep searching to mean something but so far everyone seems content with Sam being a shadow that comes about to incite a laugh or two before drifitng back to semi-existence. I join clubs and groups like crazy so that people will see me, people will notice me, people will remember me.
Don't get me wrong I do it because I want to and because I want to further God's word but fellowship means a lot to me. Being with people is a huge part of my faith. Surrounding yourself with people who will keep you strong with God.
Everyone tells me I do too much. I need to take some time off from being so busy. But busy is good for me. Busy makes me feel like I'm accomplshing something. If I'm busy and someone notices it means that someone knows my name. Someone remembers me.
But I fail in cultivating relationships department. I've tried and failed twice and no one has ever shown exclusive interest in me.
So I'm a smiling travesty determined to never show her flaws to another peson again because her flaws are what got her into the mess and what totally ruined her emotional being.
But I hear this song again and I think of Mark.
Of how he lived.
And then I feel like a selfish fool.
Mark will never walk down another street, Mark will never drink another milkshake, Mark will never make another person laugh, Mark will never dress up for a night out, or pull a dirty shirt off the floor and give it a whiff before deciding it can handle one more day of wear.
Who am I to not live?
I have the whole world in front of me.
Who will live for me if I don't live for myself?
No one.
Who will they call "Switzerland" in a squabble? Who will they look to for a musical reference? Who will they call when they need a book? Or just someone who likes listening to others talk and trying so hard to help them so that even when her life sucks she can make a difference in someone else's and make sure there is one more smile in the world even if it can't be hers.
Even if I am a "walking travesty" in a "city of fools" it's my job to live, to seek, to be.
I can only be "me".
No matter how messed up "me" might be.
"Me" might being wary of people, might fall for arrogant boys, might leave the move theatre to avoid watching the characters fight.
But I'm the only "me" in this world.
So bring on the cynics, misogynists, and arguments.
Excerpt from Lullabies
Make it a sweet, sweet goodbye - it could be for the last time and it's not right.
"Don't let yourself get in over your head," he said.
Alone and far from home we'll find you...
Dead - Like a candle you burned out;
spill the wax over the spaces left in place of angry words.
Scream - To be heard, like you needed any more attention;
throw the bottle, break the door, and disappear.
Sing me to sleep, I'll see you in my dreams, waiting to say, "I miss you. I'm so sorry."
Forever's never seemed so long as when you're not around it's like a piece of me is missing.
I could have learned so much from you but what's left now?
There is just so much and too much I could say.
I hate goodbyes so much. I think it was because I was struck by the finality of goodbye when I was really young. Within a year of turning seven about nine people of my family or close friend sphere died. And many of them where people who meant a lot to me.
My grandfather; the one man in the world who I loved beyond all measure and I knew loved me and cared about me and would protect me. He was a gruff guy but he spoiled me rotten to the core. And all the sudden he would never be there to love or protect me again.
My Sunday School teacher/Pastor's wife, Jewel: If her name wasn't enough to clue you in on how amazing she was, well, if ever there was an angel God sent to earth it was this woman. She loved everyone and everyone loved her and there wasn't a thing she wouldn't do for her family, her congregation, or the kids in her class.
I lost so many people in my life when I was really little and many unexpectedly. My grandfather had heart problems but he had recovered and he had come home from the hospital and was taking it easy at home.
I just remember the last time I saw him. I remember making him read just about every book he had at his house. Over and over. I snuggled close. I settled in. I listened to the sound of his voice. I held onto his flannel shirt. I listened to his heart and
the rumble of his chest with each word. And I never wanted to leave. Maybe I knew as my mom came to pick me up and I fought to stay. Maybe I knew the next day my grandfather would find himself in the hospital again. Maybe I knew I would never see him again. So I thought if I just never let him out of my sight then he won't be able to leave me.
My mom tells me I helped to set up for the viewing but I remember not going to the funeral. I remember not wanting to go. Because no matter how long I kept my grandfather in my sight eventually they would take him away.
Jewel. All she was doing was vacumming the basement stairs and she tripped on the cord. She took a tumble and hit her head, fell unconcious, and bled to death in her brain. One day she was so alive, just a pastor's wife taking care of household chores, and the next she was brain dead on life support.
I hate goodbyes. Even more I hate goodbyes knowing that the person is still out there but there is nothing you can do to bring them back. Friends, family, anybody. They are still living but you aren't a part of their life anymore and they don't want to be or can't be a part of yours.
But sometimes I get a little crazy and clingy in my attempt to avoid goodbyes. Sometimes I freak out if I don't talk to someone everyday. Sometimes I think "What if they just leave? What if they are sick of me? What if they forget that we were friends?"
And the pain and the worry really make me burn out alot on the friend/relationship scale. Angry words seem to be the story of my life right now. I hate inviting myself but I'll do it but I want to be invited and when I'm not invited I get angry because I wasn't invited and I wasn't assured to invite myself. I know there have been plenty of times that my friends have hung out without me and didn't tell me they would all be together. So there I wasn't invited but I didn't even have the knowledge of a hang-out to invite myself along with and then I just get so mad. I'd rather be a fifth wheel then not part of the ride at all.
I do an awful lot of "screaming". I play the diva, the drama queen, I make things a big deal. Because I want someone to see me. But then I'm just seen as the dive, drama queen and I guess that isn't attractive, I guess that isn't what gets you the right attention. It just makes you the reformation project. Enter feeling like a fool. I just feel now that if I'm not stoic and strong then no one will want me. Because apparently admitting you throw some tantrums, and you cry, and you get mad about petty things sometime just makes you socially inept. And you just get "nice guys" looking to save the world one pathetic wanna be adult at a time.
I want a "just me" person and I want to know that my friends want me around when they want everyone else around. I know it's my insecurities that I work through but "next time" needs to be thrown out of the english language.
Seriously.
I haven't slept well all summer because at night all my thoughts come crashing down on me. About friends, about love, about family, about living. I was ready to throw my bears away the other night, rip all the notes out of my devotionals, toss my prayer journal out in the cold (or heat).
Once again, I just want the last year and a half to be a really bad dream.
My dad was in rehab, My parents seperated, my dad moved out, my dad is one a billion different medications because his body is shot, my dad moved to Oregon, my mom kind of semi-kicked me out, my friends have changed dynamically from high school to college, and just from one semester to the next at college, and I failed epically at steering the love boat. And now we are moving and despite the fact that my life was pretty much boxed up when I went to college and disperesed between my sister and my grandma's house. I have to pack my life all over again. Move to another cold unfeeling house that once again won't be a home. We have to get rid of the cats and the dog to move into the house that my mom put a down payment.
No marks, no traces of this life, start all over again, new town, new people, new house, same old problems.
And I ended the year on the note of completely crushed self-esteem and securities. And not believing in people all over again.
I have crazy dreams about things I shouldn't be dreaming about. I'm in over my head. They just won't go away. Having a loving family, having that tight-knit group of friends, being in loved and being loved. Rewinding to save my friendship or stop in from happening at all. Falling in love all over again with someone I know is really just out to break my heart.
But I miss the naivety.
I miss being happy.
For three months I was so happy.
And one week brought it all crashing down.
And it's a sweet dream that leaves me with a painful cavity I live with everyday for right now.
All this because of one desperate attempt to live because I've seen so much so recently about how life is just taken away.
Because Mark (and Michelle) dying really made me want to live. Mark died on May 4. May 7th I probably made the most foolish move of my young adult life. My biggest regret so far in adulthood and college.
The week that I hit the crash lane I had a talk about death and the afterlife with my friends Josh and Kayla which brought this all back to me again.
This fear of not living.
Of being afraid to live.
But fear makes people reckless.
It sure made me reckless.
And sometimes I miss being afraid to be afraid.
That glorious period where I just existed.
Where I forgot about leaving a mark because I felt like I had found a place.
Now living is living through these thoughts, these desperate wishes, this ravenous desire to find contentment again. To find my confidence. To find my courage.
Because now instead of being afraid of not living is my last worry.
Now I think I'm afraid to live.
Because to live means to say goodbye.
....and I really hate goodbyes.
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