Sensitive.

I so many times re-read a post and my hand trembles on the mouse as I hover over the publish button. But I steer it away and press save draft instead. Maybe another day. Maybe another time. There is a limit to my openness. A threshold of exposure I am not prepared for.

If I pressed it, maybe you’d understand.

There is this double edge sword to my personality. What makes me so compassionate and empathic in turn causes me to be sensitive and so easy to bruise. I wouldn’t trade one for the other, but when that cut bleeds my skin I question. Why I let people in so easily when they so quickly and sharply swipe the blade? If I were to shut my heart down, build up a brick enclosure and not let your words effect me, then I wouldn’t be myself. If I didn’t let you hurt me, I could never love you. It’s the price one pays, this sensitivity, for the ability to love deeper.

At the calm of my work life came a personal drama so unexpected I was blindsided and winded. When I jokingly questioned you I was met with an anger I couldn’t have prepared for. To be told by one about the anger of another? When did you become so passive that you couldn’t address it with me? I hate when the petty cloud our judgements. When the inner wound prevents our outward thinking. You were hurt. Yes, I understand, it was so unintentional I wish you understood. Now there are four of us involved and what are we even arguing about?

Then again quickly blindsided by the closest friend’s harshest words. Didn’t you know how sensitive of a subject that was? How it takes all my willpower to come every day to a place that gives and takes and hurts and laughs with no warning or advance notice. Of course I try. Of course I write it. Of course it is never my intention to make these mistakes. I bite my tongue. Push the hovering tears back.

Then there’s you, the third. If you only knew how hard I try. How I question every move, doubt myself, doubt your intent. There are people who want to be my friend? A thought still so foreign to me. Yes, I am a great friend, but you don’t know that yet. You’re running on blind faith without my persuasion. Since when did I acquire friends this way? So I misinterpret you. Question you. Take your silence as my doubt.

My eyes scan over Anne Sexton’s words to find my voice within them.

Be careful of words,
even the miraculous ones.

I strung today’s events with a thick thread of vagueness hoping only my emotion would show through.

Yet I am in love with words.
They are doves falling out of the ceiling.
They are six holy oranges sitting in my lap.
They are the trees, the legs of summer,
and the sun, its passionate face.
Yet often they fail me.
I have so much I want to say,
so many stories, images, proverbs, etc.
But the words aren’t good enough,
the wrong ones kiss me.

I have this fault. This need to over explain. I dig this ever widening chasm with my words, so many more opportunities for a misstep when there are so many words scattered about.

There is another fault. This fear of being misunderstood.

Words and eggs must be handled with care.
Once broken they are impossible
things to repair.

Poem by Anne Sexton “Words“

Linked with Just Write and Pour Your Heart Out

Humbled

I haven’t been present lately. Not writing, not commenting, not reading. I have spent most days crying. Sometimes so much so that I’ve made myself sick. I’m not ready yet to go into detail about what is happening, but needless to say its work related. 

I am having a horrendous time separating work from home. My family feels the outcome of that. I have to field questions from Bear why his mother is crying all the time. I have to overhear my 4.5 year old son say to his father “I’ve had a tough time” emits sobs. A phrase that hears frequently from his mother. Things that once brought me joy (hosting Thanksgiving for my friends) no longer do. I had to force myself to get out of bed and begin preparations. 

My tears come sporadically uncontrollably often even when I don’t want them to like in front of my mother in law as she picks up my kids to babysit. 

I am humbled because last week I asked on twitter and personally via email to every contact I have. Former colleagues, friends, ex-boyfriends, everyone if they know of a position in the Twin Cities. It no longer matters to me what I do, but for my health and sanity and the well being of myself and my family I have to leave my current job. And so many responded. So many people offerred to help or offerred sympathy. 

After being so beaten down I no longer have faith in myself. To see so many people that I know in various ways offer assistance was beyond humbling. So I ask you now, dear readers, if you would please look in your networks and see if there are any available jobs in the Twin Cities that you know of. My background is in fundraising, IT, customer service and admin. 

Thank you so much. 

If I Only Had One Day

It’s been slowly gnawing at me. That movie I saw last week. Then yesterday that article I read. The red stained face of my co-worker when the third year anniversary of her boyfriend’s death came and went. So many are being torn away from family by disease and leaving in their wake only heartbreak.

I wonder what it says about me, the way I would choose to spend my last day. I planned it from the morning to the end what I would do. Then I’ve sat there and thought. Why are some people so glaringly missing? Why did I choose that place over the other? What memories am I conjuring up hoping to relive by spending my last moments in these ways?

I’ve made some assumptions on my last day. One that it would be a gloriously hot summer day. Two that I would be healthy enough to do any physical activity I wanted without hesitation.

My day would be in Chicago. I smile, just writing it. The Chicago sized hole in my heart. My home. Even after living here eight years, it’s still not home. It will never be home. There is no place else I’d rather relive my favorite memories.

I would start the day at Walker Brothers. Where I used to host/cashier for years. We would order family style: Sizzling bacon, chocolate chippies with big globs of whipped cream, an apple pancake, the German pancake with extra lemon and powdered sugar, the challah French toast. My nose awakens recalling the scents, my mouth waters remembering.

Then we’d head to the beach. We’d build sandcastles and I would hope the Art Teacher wouldn’t accidentally pull down my bathing suit and then tackle me to the sand. We would frolic in the water playing chicken fight and 500.

For lunch we would go to my favorite restaurant, Tapas Barcelona, and order my favorite things. The mussels dipped in glorious melted butter. The snails perched atop of a fluffy piece of bread soaked in sauce. Pitchers of margaritas and sangria would flow. For dessert I would delight in my pistachio banana and ice cream.

We would go to the park next. Play ultimate Frisbee. Perhaps sit in a circle and play Mafia. Then when properly worn out we’d go bowling. They would make it cosmic, even though it was still relatively early in the day. For dinner we would dress up and drive down Lake Shore Drive. The music blasting, the summer breeze blowing through the slightly cracked open windows. I would press my forehead against the window and stare at the city ablaze in lights just like I did all those years ago.

We’d have dinner at the most expensive steak restaurant in town, order the best wine they had. We would laugh and talk about all the greatest times. All the best times. We would not talk about what I would miss; we would only recall what I had.

We would go to Navy Pier and ride the ferris wheel. I would keep my eyes open the entire time. Clutching the hand of who ever sat next to me.

Then with the wine still buzzing in our heads we would go out and play in the sprinklers at Northwestern just like we did that one glorious summer. We would run through the fields wet, muddy, the laughter burning our lungs. Then we would strip off our muddy garments and jump into the cooling waters of Lake Michigan.

Afterwards we would go out dancing. The room swirling, the beat pounding in my chest. We would dance and dance and dance until our feet gave out. Until the bars closed at 5am.

Then I would go home. I would get in my bed. With my dogs, my children, my husband and I would fall asleep with a smile on my face, and I wouldn’t need to wake up again because I had lived.

Written as a part of Just Write.

The More Complicated Ship: Friendship

I have this string of thoughts that has been floating around my head, pulling at me. There was a writer’s workshop at Mama Kat’s that I missed awhile ago that asked the question of what 10 lessons your child would teach you. One came to mind, instantaneously, I wish I could make friends easily. Kids just see someone in a vague age range as themselves and they just start talking, start playing and suddenly they’re friends no questions asked. I can’t do that. I’ve never been able to just do that.

I make friends so easily, in my mind. In my mind I haven’t escalated far beyond an initial childhood reaction of you seem nice, we have something in common, let’s be friends. However, I am acutely aware of the fact that the feeling is almost never mutual. Most people take time to make friends. They are guarded. Unwilling to reveal. Their time is precious and difficult to penetrate.  I hate this.

I make friends by telling. Perhaps, usually, too much. I reveal from the get go. It’s a good thing I never dated because I’m sure this earnestness wouldn’t work well.

Why is it so challenging to be friends as adults? Have we been hurt too much? Scorned by childhood teasing and gossip? Why do we have a limit of how many friends we’ll have? At what point does someone transition from acquaintance to friend?

To me friendships are more complicated than relationships. Much more complicated. In a relationship to an extent you know where you stand. They are milestones that you complete. There are late night whisperings. When was the last time two friends sat together to discuss just what kind of friends they are?

I am loyal. To a fault. I will do anything and everything for my friends.

I forgive. Always. Often when I shouldn’t.

I am compassionate. My empathy is endless.

Perhaps because I give so much, always, that I never feel like I get what I give. I never feel equal. Like in a relationship where one loves more, deeper, stronger, there is that endless imbalance in my friendships. That endless doubt in my mind of where we stand.

On some level I’m always surprised when my friends are there for me. I am expecting them to disappoint me. I never feel worthy of their friendships, so I never trust it completely. So I give more and more to compensate for these feelings of inadequacy.

I have an arsenal of fear.

I’m often so disappointed in myself. Disappointed that I care so much, try so hard, and feel so terribly alone at the end of the day. I miss my friends from Chicago with a tremor that shakes my core. I know I idealize them, idealize a childhood friendship we once had for in reality the friends I’ve known the longest know me the least. They know my past though; they know what has shaped me. Molded me, broke me, put me back together. So I carry them with me. I find that the internet makes it all the more harder. These virtual relationships you’re building with people you’ve never met.

I miss the days when we all wore friendship bracelets and hearts torn in two.

 

 

 

Linked up with Shell’s Pour Your Heart Out and Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop: Disappointed

    

Chicago Recap

Two weeks ago we went to Chicago for the MOH’s bridal shower. This involved driving 7 hours with two children. I’m certain that I complained the most. Somehow six people survived in my parents two bedroom condo without central air. I was slightly convinced that their window units were trying to melt us, but we lived to tell another tale.

My favorite conversation was when we drove off the highway and the H asked what that sound was.

I listened, smiled, and said, “That’s the sound of summer — cicadas”

Things I learned while I was there:

• Chicago moms are way thinner than Minnesota moms.
• Always keep tampons on hand.
• Never forget your camera.
• I miss my friends terribly, completely, and am always depressed when I come back to Minnesota.

Written as a part of Shell’s Summer Fun Show Off. Link up your Summer Fun for a chance to win prizes from Ubisoft!