oneword: brick

A thick, tall, impenetrable wall has been built up around me, brick by brick, disappointment by disappointment. Or is it, illusion by delusion? Either way, it has weathered many a storm. It has protected me from harm, while keeping me safely in a void of independence.

Or is it loneliness?

It stands there still, but so do you. Looking patiently, intently toward the other side, biding your time before you attempt the climb.

oneword: brick

And so we keep building.

But what, exactly? Why do we keep coming back to this same tired dance?

Why do I continue to play, when I know that a few weeks from now, you'll want nothing to do with me again?

Why do I hang on to this sick, twisted hope that you want to do more than hook-up, BE more than a late-night phone call?

The chemistry is still there. Definitely. But, Mr. October, am I strong enough to resist it?

oneword: throw

I want to throw out all of the silly little notions I've learned. Toss them clear out a 3rd story window. Sometimes those notions throw me into a tizzy and I escalate so fast that few know what to do. And then someone or something reminds me that this too shall pass. This too is not worth throwing everything into flux. So I will change my approach. I will reevaluate the way I evaluate the world. I will put myself in check. Because, as it turns out, I am not superficial. But I am emotional. I am sensitive.

And sometimes that pushes me off center.

I am grateful for the people in my life who provide the solid ground I often struggle to find, the people who tell me like it is, in such clear and certain terms that I wonder why I couldn't see it before. Those people are the ones I want to throw all of my energy towards. They help me first to find and see myself, and then they help me reveal that to the world.

I don't know what I would do without them.

wanting

have you ever tried to imagine heaven? i've always heard that the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard the glory in God's word. still, i remember listening to the descriptions of heaven from many a preacher. they talked of streets paved of gold, of buildings built of rubies and emeralds. in my young mind, i thought of hollywood and the taj mahal. later, my version of heaven had purple oceans washing up on grey beaches, with big black skelatol trees and black skies, and big square buildings. i wanted structure and plans and concrete. always concrete.

more recently, i realized my vision of heaven had at some point shifted and then changed completely. now when i think of heaven i think of a rainy day and the wind in my face. that's today. tomorrow i'm sure i'll imagine something else. maybe structure, again. i don't know.

i remember my father saying to me once that he imagined heaven would be alot of sitting around doing nothing and that that didn't appeal to him at all. it's hard enough to stick with the discipline of our faith without not being over joyed at our misconception of the reward. i think i've had the same problem. sometimes i imagine that the believers will all be there, like some big social gathering. and that doesn't appeal to me at all. anyone who knows me can tell you social gatherings start wearing on my nerves after about half an hour and then i start seeking to be my namesake. a ghost.

i suppose what i truly want is flexibility and i want heaven to change with me, according to what i want. wait, that's not true either. what i really want is to be alive. i want life, bright, pulsing, and absorbing me. i don't truly want what i want. i never have. i don't want concrete buildings or wind in my face. i want busy freeways and i want abandoned roads. i want confrontation and a certain amount of strife. i want strangers and lovers and people i will never meet passing by. i want to teach and to learn and to hate and to feel. i want to feel.

heaven according to all i've been told by all those preachers over all these years could never be like that. heaven could never imitate real life. as tired as i get, i, deep down inside, and you, deep down inside in those places you don't really wanna look, like the struggle to make life mean something before death.

i associate heaven with death. and that's not what i want. peace isn't what i want. i want the struggle, the difficulty, the joy, the pain, the rapture, everything. i want everything. i want to live.

oneword: delay

i'm not sure why i can't just sit back and wait for these things to happen a bit more naturally. i wonder sometimes, am i so in need of a confidence boost that i throw myself into unhappy situations for the sake of a compliment?

oneword: wanting

why does it always seem as though what you want it always waiting for you on the other side of the fence? is the grass always greener over there? i don't want to spend my life jumping fences to see if it really is. i want to be able to look down at the grass on my side of the fence and breathe out a sigh of relief and be thankful that I am on my side of the fence, even if there is a little brown patch.

oneword: wanting

i want to lie and say that i'm excited. to say that i am hopeful. to say that it feels different this time. i want to say all those things. i want to mean them.

but i am not happy. i am not excited. i am just calm. quiet. afraid to speak. to jinx. to lose this chance. this opportunity to see.

i feel like my heart won't release completely until i get my own little duckies in a row. until i can be what he needs. what he deserves. i want to be what HE deserves.

... this isn't about what i want anymore.

hidden

we scattered few, hidden from view. where ya been red? there's been so much in between your sparkling appearances.

i miss my friend.

oneword: hidden

Massive brick walls and jagged boulders skew my view of you.

Frigid, musty shadows engulf me.

Moisture molecules escape my stinted breath, made visible in this vacuum of humanity, quietly proving the presence of warmth, of love, of possibility, in this otherwise desolate reality.

oneword: asking

where is this going? what are we doing? is this a bubble, just asking to be popped... or is it something scarily, sanely, brilliantly real? something that is just, for once, going to work? all i'm asking is for a little clarity. all i'm asking for is a chance NOT to screw myself over again.

oneword: asking

I don't pray all too often, but in an attempt to believe in some higher power, I have began. This higher power reinforces the fact that I AM alive, and that there is more to everything. There are people, who in them, I believe He lives. Because He is supposedly everywhere, and that's where I see him being. As I left my house this morning, I prayed, asking for his blessing, in hopes that the exam that predetermines where I'll be in the next year would go well. Afterward, I thought about what I had done, and realized that asking Him for something like that was selfish. There IS more to everything, and thinking that my life is predetermined by exams is unnecessary. I won't ask, but I'll let Him know how it went.

wordcount #4: to

To each her own.

Here's to every single talented, raw, energetic female out there daring to be herself. Here's to the cries of despair that might follow. To the doubt that plagues her heart. To the poison infiltrating her defenses at every step of the way.

Here's also to the laughter that tears us from ourselves, returning us refreshed and renewed. To the bravery, the unwavering belief that we have something to say. We have something important to do in this lifetime. And only we--we women--have the power to actually do it.

To each lady willing to embrace that simple truth, that responsibility to herself, to her, I raise a glass.

oneword: asking

All I am asking for is a little patience. I know I can be a monstrous pain in the ass, but that is just a front. I'm scared of letting go, of releasing any of that control I've tried to maintain my whole life. This inane need for constant and total control has mostly been in vain.

What am I saying? It is purely vain. It is ego in its great and powerful oz-like magnificence.

So please, listen to what I'm asking you:

Keep asking.

oneword: diamond

what are these prisms dancing across my eyes at night? red. the passion. or the lack thereof. orange. the heat that i feel in fleeting moments. yellow. the playfulness that escapes me. green. the rebirth i am seeking. blue. the tears. the ones i hide. and purple. only i'm anything but regal.

i am not flawless. sometimes i'm not even sure that i'm worth much at all.

only the thing is, i'm tougher than you think.

oneword: jar

Lock me up, sock me up, bottle me up inside. And outside. I am trapped in an emotional reality that is me, one that I try day in and day out to figure out but rarely get any closer. I always saw myself as an open book, wearing my heart on my sleeve as they say.

But through the years it turns out that book was slammed shut, bound and rebound, wound and rewound until I barely knew where I began.

The lid is stuck. I'm trying with all my might to unscrew it. My palms are raw and shaking. The knife I used to bang the edges is dull and broken. I'm ready to slam the jar into the ground, shattering any remaining chance of rebirth. I don't have any other resources.

But you.

oneword: jar

go ahead. try to bottle me up.

but i guarantee, i am probably way too much for you to handle.

oneword: point

i used to think that the whole point of falling in love was so you could find "the one," get married, have kids, and live happily ever after on your proverbial porch swing, watching the sun go down every night while you sip tea and talk about how fast it all went by.

this probably comes as no surprise to my older counterparts here...

but maybe, we fall in love to learn more about ourselves. our soul mate is whoever happens to unlock us in our truest forms. maybe it's a lot less about being together....and a lot more about being YOU.

GRE: turpitude

tur·pi·tude n. depravity; baseness; vile, shameful, or base character.

go terps? fear the turtle?

moral perversion. the stuff that really makes my skin crawl. when all the perceptional greys of right and wrong get so cloudy that you ignore that blatant, incessant thump of thump of your heart beating faster and crawling up the back of your throat because you know what you're doing is wrong. that's what scares me the most. when we justify committing these sins against each other with self serving excuses. and only the really good liars - they are the only ones who manage to convince themselves that they don't have to take any responsibility.

GRE: aberrant

aberrant adj. deviating from normal or correct.

what a lovely way to begin. this word, this aberrant, rubbing in the fact that my entire desired "career" path makes no sense. that it's different. that it's barely understood, let alone accepted. such a smart girl i was, such an over achiever. everything was there. right in line. right on time. why couldn't i have just gotten a full time gig like everyone else? or better yet, why couldn't i have taken the GRE back then? why couldn't i have just done what was normal?

hello. my name is aberrant. and i am a unique snowflake.

...just maybe not in the good way.

GRE: an explanation

The Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is the biggest obstacle standing between me and my future endeavors. I have been pretending to study for this BITCH of a standardized test for 3 months now... and have made no headway.

Straight memorization has never been something I have managed to transition out of short-term memory into long-term internalization and understanding. The only thing that works for me is some sort of creative attachment.

So. I'm going to pick a bunch of my vocab words that I am having trouble remembering... and oneword the shit out of them. Feel free to join me, or suggest words that you think I should know the meaning of.

Ready, set, educate!