Who is you?

I was re-reading some posts of mine and realized that none of you know who “you” is.  There are times when I leave messages to those I know read this blog, and therefore will write some cryptic message like, “Thank you – you know who you are – for doing…”.  But then I started to think, what if YOU doesn’t know who YOU is.  What if YOU think it’s HIM, but really it’s HER or maybe even YOU, but you’re too busy thinking that it can’t be YOU and really, really, really think it’s HIM.  I try to make it obvious, but there have been moments when I know YOU didn’t know it was YOU because you pretty much said so when you talked to me, making me believe you thought it was HER or HIM.

Pronouns are tricky.  But, I don’t always want to say who it is.  There are secrets in my life still, things I hold close to my heart.  I know I share quite a bit on here.  I wrote out the heartbreaking experience of ending a five year relationship, an engagement, on this blog, and did so without much care in the world, because quite honestly, it was the only thing that made me feel semi-sane.  I know he reads this blog, or he said as much when we last discussed it.  And I know it has to pain him to see the realizations that I come to.  I imagine it hurts him just as much as it hurts me to realize things long buried, things I would rather not admit to, things that define me as a person, and a not-so-good one at that.  But in those moments of self-realization I have made leaps and bounds in discovering who I am and what I hope to become.  And because of that, I thank you for putting up with my biographical rantings and awakenings, even when I am sure they pain you to read.  And this time, I hope I have made it clear who “YOU” is.

Though it seems like I am writing freely for the world to read my most inner thoughts, there are still things I keep close to my heart.  Things I refuse to share.  These are the things that give me light in the darkness.  That soft glow that I keep tending, so it will roar to life.  To quote a video-game, “Hope is what gives us strength.”  Fragile at first, brittle and weak, it can grow to be a beacon in the darkest times.  2011 was a dark year.  It saw the end of a cherished relationship, the death of two very important people, work troubles, a cross country move, and a variety of other negatives.  But it also brought the desire to be happy, the hope that I can be, with myself and the life I chose, and the chance to become self-sufficient and follow dreams to fruition.  I once asked how much do you give of yourself in a relationship?  I gave so much of myself that I didn’t even know who I was when I looked in the mirror.  I was, for all definitions, Jonathan’s fiance, to everyone we knew in Davis.  Though it was not noticed by Jonathan, I was all too aware of the fact that many introduced me as, “Jonathan’s fiance, Stephanie…” leading with his name, and a title solely glued to him.  Though I cherish my memories with him, and I hold them close to my heart, I cannot lie and say that I am relieved to have the chance to find out about myself and define myself on my terms.  I am Stephanie.  I may stand alone in that, but there is a freedom, a strength, found in truly discovering who you are and what you are.  I hold on to that, and that is why I am thanking 2011.  Through trials, tribulations, deaths, and romances ending, this year has been a great teacher in self (thought, action, definition, and discovery).

I hope YOU have a better understanding of who YOU is when I write to YOU.  There are times when it is to YOU, but it can also be to HER or HIM or any number of pronouns and to any number of people who have impacted my life and touched me, taught me, or loved me.  Or who I love.  And also realize, there are things that this blogosphere will not know.  Secrets that I hold close to me, that light the path when I look around and see darkness.  To the numerous YOUs out there, know YOU are part of that warming glow.

Reminiscences of Christmases past. (Scrooge edition.)

Being in the suburbs always inspires me to write.  I am not sure if that is because I have more free time, therefore more time to think and actually act on those thoughts, or because it is reminiscent of all the pain of the summer, and as a motivator, pain is killer (pun intended).  This holiday season is full of emotion.  It seems that among all the joy, there is a fair amount of sorrow mingled in for me and my friends.  Deaths in the family, illness finally winning, relationships torn apart, alongside other things, like work woes.  It seems that everyone I have come across in the preceding weeks have had a very bah humbug attitude on the upcoming days of festivity.  Believe me, I am with them, and though I am trying to see the twinkling lights as hopeful representations of what the new year has to offer, the past twelve months have made me into a cynical Scrooge.  Maybe I will need the ghosts of past, present and future to visit in the night to remind me that the good does dwell within the human scope.

I am currently listening to “Winter Song” by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson.  The chorus repeats the question “is love alive?”  This particular holiday track has always struck a chord in me.  Even when I was with Jonathan.  When I should have, actually, felt more love.  My family, his family, friends abounding, and most importantly, from him, there should have been no doubt that love was alive.  I cannot help but think about last Christmas, though, and the extreme turmoil I was in.  Our relationship was failing, and I was too scared to let go of something I knew was gone.  He had been my life for so long, that something, anything, different, terrified me to my core.  My heart, despite being helplessly pledged to him, was no longer in the relationship.  I somewhere between being too scared to move and too scared to stay.  Long buried issues were surfacing, and with each new discovery, the pain dug deeper.  I sit here, over a year later, with the scars present, and internally, still healing.  And reaping the consequences of not only his actions, but mine.

The past week or so I have watched Sex and the City.  The show always had the potential to make me cry, but upon visiting the series this time, I have found myself in tears more times than ever before.  It seems that the relationships of the four women all hold commonalities with the relationship I was in, and hope for the new, better, stronger relationship(s) of my future.  Carrie, in the first season, asks Mr. Big to “stand still” with her.  I want that.  But when I think about it, when I think about that future, with the steadfast love from one man, it frightens me.  My wish for a committed relationship is there, but it’s buried under miles of uncertainty and fear.  I sit and say things like, “When I am married,” or “if I ever have a wedding,” and as I say it there is a voice in the back of my head that questions, “Will you ever be strong enough for that?”  And what is even harder is that I am not sure how to portray (or decipher) patience from other things, like inability to move forward, the desire not to, indifference, or other far more hurtful things.  Notice my question is not a matter of desire, but a matter of ability.  When you have your wedding music picked out, your desired dress hanging on the wall (or even bought), your invitations picked out, a location (with a deposit down), and then it all goes to hell and you realize you are unsure you can walk down the aisle, does your hope of that happily ever after ending vanish?  Is it just another unforeseen cost?

I have taken small steps forward.  Some seem monumental, though, larger than life and terrifying.  They feel right.  But it doesn’t stop my hands from shaking, my mind from questioning, and my heart from racing.  Am I  creating my own fears or will it fall into an easy understanding?  Jonathan and I felt easy, and maybe that was a bad sign, considering when we broke up, it felt like I was with a stranger, someone who hurt me far above what I thought was possible.  And I know he felt the same way.

Okay — I am finished.  No more walking down this lane.  The ghost Christmases past haunt me daily, I need to live in the present, so the future doesn’t seem so frightening.

 

Holiday Cheer.

Check out my music blog to see my great friends’ (Farraday) new video for “Ho for the Holidays,” a new spin on the classic “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”

Also — check out the video from their first single “Put Me on the Next Plane“.  Yours truly makes an appearance.

 

The philosophy of life.

The past few days have left me pondering life.  What do we live for?  Who do we live for?  Why do we go through all of it?  That greatest clichéd question of: what is the meaning of life?  I think people always assume it is some profound unanswered question that the Almighty will tell us when we reach the pearly gates, but I think the truth is something far more simple, but still harder to understand.  What if the meaning of life is simply to live.  But then it spirals into “what is living?”  But even more truth comes from that: living is how we define it.  If you are unhappy with your life, is it not true that it means we are unhappy with what we are doing.  There are obligations, societal rules, certain responsibilities that we cannot put off, however, who says there is only one way to go about accomplishing those things?  How come there is such a precedent on making money, but 90% of the people you ask dislike how they come about getting their money.  But it still leads me to question how people can combine their greatest pleasures with the requirements of life.  Not everything is easy, even though they say that doing what you love means you never have to work a day in your life.  But what if you love photography, writing, drawing, or any other art where you have to work your way through the trials and errors of editors and agents?  While you enjoy making your art, you still have to provide for yourself and loved ones.  So you spend countless hours, days, months, and years working towards that big break where you can get paid for your passion by doing what?  Working menial jobs, hitting your head against the wall wondering why, why, why do I have to do this?  Will you feel more accomplished since you climbed the rungs of the ladder one tormented step at a time, or will you look back and loathe the experience?  The saying goes life is not about the destination, but the journey.  Do we take the straightest, quickest, most manageable route, or should we wind through the mountains, taking in all the scenes, the possibilities, the experiences?  And if we do, and it takes longer than expected, do we have the support from friends and family if we have to double back because we landed ourselves in a dead-end?

Metaphorically or not, life is about living, about finding what makes us smile and laugh and brings us joy and love and experience; trial and error help with these things, but knowing oneself, truly looking in the mirror and seeing not only all the beneficial, beautiful things, but also the not-so-pretty, the things we want to change, aid us in our travels.  Waxing intellectual but providing no advice, I guess maybe this post is more of a practice in writing out what I think.  Maybe looking for an answer from someone else.  Compare and contrast, like we did in grade school.

All This & Heaven Too, Florence + the Machine.

And the heart is hard to translate, it has a language of its own.  It talks in tongues and quiet sighs, in prayers and proclamations, in the grand days of great men in the smallest of gestures, in short shallow gasps.  But with all my education, I can’t seem to command it.  And the words are all escaping me and coming back all damaged.  And I would put them back in poetry, if I only knew how.  I can’t seem to understand it and I would give all this and heaven too, I would give it all if only for a moment that I could just understand the meaning of the word, you see, because I’ve been scrawling it forever, but it never makes sense to me, at all.  And it talks to me on tiptoes, and sings to me inside, it cries out in the darkest night, and breaks in the morning light.  But with all my education, I can’t seem to command it.  And the words are all escaping me and coming back all damaged.  And I would put them back in poetry, if I only knew how.  I can’t seem to understand it and I would give all this and heaven too, I would give it all if only for a moment that I could just understand the meaning of the word, you see, because I’ve been scrawling it forever, but it never makes sense to me, at all.  And I would give all this and heaven too, I would give it all if only for a moment that I could just understand the meaning of the word, you see, because I’ve been scrawling it forever, but it never makes sense to me, at all.  No words, a whole language, doesn’t deserve such treatment, and all of my stumbling phrases never amounted to anything worth this feeling.  All this heaven… never could describe such a feeling as I hear… words were never so useful so I’m screaming out a language that I never knew existed before.

Tofurkey Day.

Hello all!  It’s Thanksgiving, and in the world of the enlightened bean, that means Tofurkey Day (vegetarian protein based dish of semi-deliciousness).  And it means being thankful for all the things in my life, great and small, good and bad, that have helped me carry out goals, put me on a path towards desired dreams, and have shaped me into the woman I am today.  And the things that continue to shape me.

There are so many people who are in my thoughts today, from the past, to the present, and hopes of the future.  Despite this year being one of the more difficult ones I have ever experienced, I cannot disregard all the painful moments and memories.  Just as the good moments serve a purpose, the bad ones do too.  And despite the heartache and the tears, I hold those things close to my heart because without them, there would be no room for growth, there would not be the opportunities I have now.

I was listening to Savage Garden (moment to gasp and choke on whatever you’re eating or drinking) the other day (and no insults, please, you remember singing along to that chica-cherry cola song, too!) and there was a line in the song “Affirmation” that said, “I believe you can never really appreciate true love until you’ve been burned.”  Out of all the affirmations in that song, that one stuck out to me.  Maybe that’s what needed to happen.  Maybe I got too close to the fire, and now I can learn to appreciate it, the warmth, the heat, the comfort, without losing myself to it.  Without losing who I am and who I will be.  It’s been eight painful months of questions, what-if’s, what were’s, who am I’s, and more, and I think today marks one remarkable moment: I woke up this morning and felt one step closer to whole.  I asked my mom a couple of months ago when it would stop hurting to look back at things between Jonathan and I, when it would feel normal, when would it become just a pleasant memory instead of a pain deep in my chest, and she said she didn’t know, it’s different for everyone, there is no time-table, but one day I would wake up and feel “it’s okay.”  It’s been a gradual process, but you know what… it’s okay.  And I know it will be good.  And then great.  And then fabulous.

Thank you — to everyone, you know who you are — for shaping my life.  And for giving me hope.

And thank you — you know who you are — for your consideration, your patience, and most of all, the smiles, there have been so many.

An avalanche.

Have you ever had moments in life that stick with you.  When you pull up the memory, you even have sensory recollection?  The smell, the taste, the temperature, even, how warm you felt, flushed and blushing versus the sun pouring down on you, even the beats per minute that your heart hammers out.  There are instances where you know something profound and life altering has happened, albeit small, but you aren’t sure how it will change you, why it is changing you, and when it will come to fruition, but you know, somewhere deep within, that moment was the moment, the tripwire, the beginning of an oftentimes difficult, but ultimately rewarding, journey.

The last couple months have left me contemplating such moments.  Discussions, glances, smiles; a vast array of fleeting images that I know stacked up to become the burgeoning life changes assaulting me now.  (Pardon my use of the term “assault,” as it implies some type of violent act, but it’s the best thing I can think of to say; life is bombarding me with choices and decisions and although they do not carry threat, the swiftness to which they come to my door is somewhat unnerving.)  I have goals, ones that I feel confident in for the first time in years.  They inspire me to keep going when the going gets tough (oh, sweet clichés).  I can picture my desired future and know that one more whispered insult is something I can take, because those end goals are more important than words bullies use.  And I feel, maybe for the first time since Jonathan and I broke up, the hope for a real future.  It makes me nervous to think about, genuine fear blossoming, but it’s that good kind of fear, like that good kind of burn after a work out, the ache that goes deep but you know it’s worth it.

I truly believe there are small blessings in difficult situations.  Recently my friend broke up from her fiancé, just as I had with Jonathan, but not for the same reasons.  In an effort to move forward and not become ensnared in the what if’s, the could be’s, and what were’s, she has taken to seeing the silver lining in situations,  great and small.  Whenever her situation challenges her, she picks the things that will make her happy and tries to focus on those and not sink in the tide of depression that ultimately comes with these situations.  I commend her for this, because I was definitely not as strong.  I tried to take my pain and deal with it one day at a time, but in the end found myself staring into the neck of a beer bottle or looking at my reflection in the pool of Grey Goose in a martini glass.  We all deal with defeat and hurt in different ways, but I can honestly say that had I not had these experiences, I wonder where, and who, I would be.  Is this an overarching silver lining?  Is this one of the plethora of lessons that come from these moments?

It hurts that we broke up, but at least we weren’t married yet, and there were no kids.  He seems so much happier in California than he ever was in Iowa, and that’s a blessing.  Just like I have opportunities in front of me that I would have otherwise lacked.  I can see friends again, be with family, enjoy those small moments of walking in Chicago with K, getting coffee with Mom, eating with my twin, and seeing my sister and joking about the most random things.  And then there are even more personal blessings.  Ones that I want to keep to myself.  That make me glow with happiness.  And those are the moments I have contemplated.  A small stone can create a large avalanche.  An image typically about impending doom, something crushing and destructive.  But I am spinning it positively.  A small thing that can change the tide, a small moment that can alter a life, a small instant that create something new and powerful.  And I can’t stop grinning thinking about it.  I am settling into something new, a life that is mine, with my own choices, my own moments, and most importantly, my happiness.

“Shake It Out” by Florence and the Machine.

Regrets collect like old friends, here to relive your darkest moments.  I can see no way, I can see no way.  And all of the ghouls come out to play.  And every demon wants his pound of flesh, but I like to keep some things to myself.  I like to keep my issues strong.  It’s always darkest before the dawn.  And I’ve been a fool, and I’ve been blind, and I can never leave the past behind.  I can see no way, I can see no way.  I’m always dragging that horse around.  And our love has pastured such a mournful sound.  Tonight I am going to bury that horse in the ground.  Cause I like to keep my issues strong.  It’s always darkest before the dawn.  Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, oh woah…shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, oh woah.  And it’s hard to dance with a devil on your back, so shake him off, oh woah.  And I am done with my graceless heart, so tonight I’m going to cut it out and then restart.  Cause I like to keep my issues strong, it’s always darkest before the dawn.  Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, oh woah…shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, oh woah.  And it’s hard to dance with a devil on your back, so shake him off, oh woah.   And given half the chance would I take any of it back?  It’s a final mess but it’s left me so empty.  It’s always darkest before the dawn…Oh woah, oh woah…And I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t, so here’s to drinks in the dark at the end of my road.  And I’m ready to suffer and I’m ready to hope.  It’s a shot in the dark and right at my throat, cause looking for heaven, for the devil in me, looking for heaven, for the devil in me… well what the hell, I’m gonna let it happen to me.  Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, oh woah…shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, oh woah.  And it’s hard to dance with a devil on your back, so shake him off, oh woah.  Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, oh woah…shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, oh woah.  And it’s hard to dance with a devil on your back, so shake him off, oh woah.

First time in a long time.

I feel like smiling.

So I am going to.

I promise…

I will write soon enough.  My hands have been itching, my mind working a mile a minute, and I need to burst and free all these words boiling inside me.  Soon enough.