Spilled

Holding in honesty is like trying to plan where something spills

We conjure up these boundaries and finely lay them side by side, leaving just enough space in between for what we can comfortably share. Behind the first line is what we should have told, the things that gnaw at our hearts in odd places and make us uncomfortable, things we are too embarrassed to share because of how it may make us look, the things we write down in our journals over and over again thinking that will satisfy the need to scream them. Over the second line is too much said. The deeper things we hoard away. The ones we don’t write in journals in fear of who might find them, or truly, in fear of being forced to stare at them written in our own handwriting, validating that its part of who we are. In between are the things we say; the words we can let dance across our tongues and into the ears of another with ease and composure.

But that is not real life.

It goes like a glass falling off a table: sudden, unplanned and messy; sparked by a question or rabbit-trailed thought. Landing behind lines, over lines, and into spaces and laps that we never planned for. Sharing too much and too little at the same time. Desperately trying to contain the spill, we run over with anything that will soak it in before it is seen, before it leaves stains or seeps into memory. The broken glass that it came from is always an afterthought. It is over to the left in ten pieces reflecting over its prior contents from ten different angles and in a new and much brighter light. The view is different from here, much more transparent. We tell others not to move, staring at fragility and trying to figure out how to pick up its sharp and raw pieces without causing anymore disturbance or pain. We place the big pieces aside; sometimes with intent to fix, other times knowing it is a lost cause. The small fine pieces lie still and drowning in the aftermath of the spill, too often they stay there, too small to see, but still large enough to feel. We call them consequences.

Post-spill there is always an apology. We are sorry that it fell. Sorry that we did not catch it sooner. Sorry that it spilled on someone else. Sorry that it deferred attention from something more important. Sorry that it made us the center of attention.
Sorry and we do not know why.

But the truth is, this kind of vulnerability needs no forethought and requires no apology.
It is desperately needed; a release of what we were never meant to hold in alone.
So there we spill, with purpose, with divine plan, into the hearts and tears of others.

And there we are covered in a prayer and held by comforting hands.
We stay for a while, and then forward we go.
Knowing that this will happen again, because it is meant to.

How naïve of us to think that it should go any differently.

This is my friend Caitie

Today we are having perfect days

and we wanted to blog about it together.

the end.

Waking Up

Waking up is something I’ve always had mixed feelings about.
I find the process itself to be so naturally unnatural.
Going from unconscious to conscious
being reminded of existence over and over again.
On any given morning, it happens in about a four second sequence including the following:
awake, aware, open eyes, long blink, short blink, check the time

But sometimes I wake up differently,
more suddenly, and with a single thought,
very clear and concise, like I’ve been repeating it in my head for hours,
it is the only thing on my mind, nothing else to crowd it.

In the aware stage, before I’ve even opened my eyes,
I’m staring the words in the face so hard they seem familiar and foreign at the same time.
Like when you read a word over and over again for too long until it seems like just a jumble of letters without meaning.

The statement seems so simple but holds so much weight,
as if it were an answer to a question,
but the problem is I can never remember the question.
The more awake I become, the farther I am from finding the question
and the more normal the statement seems to become.
I write the statement down to try to remember

“because you wanted to”

I stare at it, so normal by this point.
Then I wonder,
what was I trying to justify to myself?
What could I have been so unsure about that these four words would make the overlap from asleep to awake

perhaps I’ll never know
or maybe a month from now I’ll wake up with the question
and then put all the pieces together.
That would be interesting.

Sister

This is my sister Abigail.

She can do cool things.

She can slide down sand dunes.

She has sweet ninja moves.

She can stand awkwardly.

Sometimes she even practices cannibalism.

She is very special.

I love her very much.

She is absolutely beautiful.

and I am so proud of who she is.

Her faith challenges me all the time.

She is the best sister in the world and I miss her.

she is visiting this weekend.

I'm very excited.

test essentials

preparation at its finest

and best tasting

all held in one hand

existence

In every morning,
clouded by thoughts,
cleared by peace

In every afternoon,
drowning in plans,
suspended in stillness

In every evening,
grappling with pride,
resting in sovereignty

In every moment,
I fail.
I triumph.

In you,

I am forgiven.

I am mended.

In me,
you inhabit.
You remain.

Forever,
you are everlasting.
I am ever changing.

Seeing

I would not have noticed her had I not looked up from the desk at that moment. She was walking from the stairs to the exit, about a two second time frame for her to actually be in view.

I knew her full name
She had asked me a question a few weeks ago.
I didn’t know the answer and I didn’t have a pen.
I typed her name on the dashboard of my computer to remind me to get her an answer.
I left it there on accident.
She has the same purse as me, just bigger.

Immediately, I felt like the biggest creep on the planet.
Who does that? How in the world could I conjure up that much information about this girl within the time it took her to walk four steps?

I felt extremely odd for my mass knowledge of a stranger. Surely I should have myself checked out by a psychologist.

After work I had about twenty minutes to run in and eat lunch. I ran into the student center, got food, and sat down somewhere I never sit. Lo and behold, I look up and there she is at the table in front of me with a few friends. She had her head resting on her fists. At first, I thought she was praying. I thought that was neat. Then it became obvious as she lifted her head that she had been crying. I caught eyes with her for half a second then looked down. Why do we do that? Why is eye contact something avoided? I think it might be because it feels so personal. I honestly felt like I had invaded her space somehow.

At this point I decided to embrace being a creep. Don’t judge me.
The two guys and a girl sitting with her looked like they did not exactly know how to handle the situation. They semi-ignored it, but I could feel the awkwardness all the way over where I was sitting. Another guy walked up and talked to the guy sitting down. She shot him a look and asked him a sarcastic question. He looked a little lost for words. All of her friends suddenly became very fascinated with their food at the same time. They had a short conversation. He started to walk away.

I tried very hard not to pay attention but then I heard her say:
Ok fine, just leave.
I don’t know why that statement hit me like a train, or why it broke my heart. It is all just very odd to me, but it did. I knew she did not mean what she had said. She wanted him to stay. She almost stopped herself, but then she followed him out.

I finished eating a little while after and then left. On my way out, again, I went out through an obscure hallway I never go through and there they were. She was crying harder but trying to contain herself when people walked by and telling him, in so many words:
You just don’t care.

I felt the urge to put everyone in that moment in suspension, run back and grab her shoulders, cry with her, and tell her over and over again she didn’t need him until she actually understood it and believed me. Not because I am a drastic feminist, I assure you Miss Independent is not my life anthem, but because I wanted so desperately for her to run into a love that would fill every aching void she was trying so hard to fit him in. I wanted her to see it so bad.

I kept walking. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Obviously. I’m writing about it.
I prayed for her. Its all I could really think to do.

I just went into the laundry room a few minutes ago, mid-blog, to do a friends laundry.

There is only one other person doing laundry
There is a sticky note with a name on the dryer next to me
I glanced at it and it says her name.

Are these kinds of moments rare or do I just walk through every day missing them?

Her clothes were done so I decided to fold them. She has obviously had a rough day. And she has know idea that I am aware of it. Its the least I could do.

I opened the dryer to do so and quickly realized they were her clothes mixed with the guys clothes. My heart sank. I shut the dryer and walked out and now I’m sitting here a little bit stuck.
I have no conclusion to this.

If this is what having Christ’s eyes feels like.
Then I’ve been asking for more than I bargained for.