the choice

I was watching Grey's Anatomy today. Christina was asking everyone if they had to choose love or surgery which they would choose, because she was trying to figure out this very thing. A patient came in who was a singer. He had cancer in his lung and he spoke about how he did not want to live without singing. As they were operating they discovered that they would have to take out more of his lung than expected in order to save his life. however, one of the surgeons decided they would try another, less sure, procedure in order to salvage his singing career. When the surgery was over Christina went to talk to the surgeon and she said, See you get it. you changed the procedure to save this man's singing because he didn't want to live without his gift. I choose my gift.

And so she chose surgery over love.

and i was thinking about my gift. I love to perform. I love to sing. I love to dance. I don't think i am the greatest in the entire world at any of those things, but i do think i have some talent for them. and when i am doing them it feels wonderful. it is like i have come home and i belong there. i cannot even describe it to you in words. I love it.

but

if it came down to it. a gun to the head decision. there would be no contest, i would choose love. but at the same time i kind of think that love is my gift. I would still be choosing my gift. I would be choosing something that made me feel whole and fulfilled and alive. Much of what art accomplishes is accomplished through love of some kind. Love is its own kind of art.

I cannot imagine my life when i am seventy without children or grandchildren. As much as i love performing, i love people more. For as much as i talk about wanting to be wanted and as much as i whine about wanting a boyfriend who takes me to the movies and brings me a flower on occasion, i think the thing I am most excited for about all that is that i will also have someone to want. I will have someone to be completely invested in. I will have someone i can build up and challenge and make them feel like they are the best of who they can be. I will have someone who i could text everyday and not worry about it. i will have someone to rejoice with and mourn with and to be a team with.

life is about how you share it. i choose my gift. love.

Skeleton

The other day I was sitting in class and something strange happened.

I was sitting with my elbows on the table, with my face in my hands. I started to move my fingers along by cheeks and I could feel the hardness of my cheekbones underneath my skin. Suddenly i was very aware and awed at my skeleton. I don't think about having a skeleton very often. Even if i am looking at one at the museum i rarely identify with it, or really even consider that i have one beneath a few layers of flesh. how odd it seems to me now.

and as i was sitting there i felt like i didn't know my skeleton. i felt like by skin and my face and my hair and my organs and muscles were all a part of what made me, but my skeleton was possibly someone else. like perhaps it should have another name, because certainly it was not a part of ashley.

and then i felt my arms and felt for the bones in my wrists and then i moved my hands along the sides of my ribs. Still, i didn't know my skeleton.

but i know that we are fond of each other, my skeleton and me. we have a bond. she gets me. she doesn't (usually) do things i don't want to do, and she is always supporting me.

its still weird....

42 pages of friendship

42 pages of friendship. now there are more. probably more like 48 pages...

When you sent me the first message who would have guessed that this would happen? I suppose it is just one of those blessings God puts in your life to remind you that He knows you.

I don't suppose i ever would have thought i could have so much to say to someone who i have only spent a few hours with in "real life." Yet, somehow, that doesn't matter at all.

And now i can see our friendship in a way i have never been able to see a friendship before. I can see it in 42 pages of shared life. and i can go back and read over it whenever i please.

Thank you for your pages.