"The Friend Box"

I was thinking about many things today. I was thinking about something a friend of mine said in a letter to me this summer about how i know how to make her feel better because i replace the broken pieces of her heart with pieces of my own heart. I think this is a really wonderful picture of what friends can do for each other. we can heal each other but we have to be willing to share bits of ourself and trust they will be replenished in return should we ever need them.

i was also thinking about this dreadful habit i have of trying to give these pieces of myself to people who either don't want or don't deserve them...that never works out very well. anyway, from these thoughts came this (slightly morbid and depressing) story. i am sorry it is remarkably poorly written. eesh. but it is just what fell out of my head at 2 am. anyway, here it is...

"The Friend Box"

once there was a girl. She was like most other girls; nothing extraordinary, not someone who turned heads or would stand out in a crowd, But this girl had a friend. it was a new friend, but it was someone who she thought she could be there for, and one day when her friend was feeling down she cut off a lock of her hair and put it in a box which she then gave to him and she said, "here. this is something soft to comfort you when you feel sad".

He took the box from her hands and thanked her.

On another occasion her friend was feeling lost, so she cut off her index finger and put it in the box and said, "here. this is for when you have lost your way and need some direction".

he took the box and thanked her.

still the next time she saw this friend he was feeling blinded so she carefully removed one of her eyes and put it in the box then she gave it to her friend saying, "here. this is for when you can't see and you need another viewpoint"

he took the box and thanked her.

and yet, the next time she saw him he was feeling insignificant, so she cut off her ear and put it in the box saying, "here. this is so you know someone is always listening to you"

he took the box and thanked her.

and the next time she visited him he was lonely so she cut out a piece of her heart and she put it in the box and said, 'here. this is so you always know that no matter what happens you are loved".

he took the box and he thanked her.

after visiting this friend so many times the girl had begun to become weak and the next time she saw him she said, "i care for you so much that i have given you all these pieces of me to help you along and i suppose i hoped that after i gave you enough pieces the box would weigh enough to matter and you would realize that in order for both of us to thrive you would have to share pieces of yourself so that my hair would be full, and i would have all ten fingers to point my direction, and i could see clearly, and hear the music in the world, and my heart would be whole because you would have filled the empty space with a piece of your own"

the boy said nothing. and he silently rose from his seat and walked to his room where there lay on his shelf a neat collection of boxes from various other friends who had offered up pieces of themselves. all of them remained sealed and unused. he retrieved the box the girl had filled up and returned all of her pieces without a word.

grasp.

it has been nearly the entire month of august and i haven't posted any blogs...not that anyone would notice...but i don't like it. i was thinking to myself about the reason i haven't written anything and i came to some conclusions. first of all, besides the blogs about random things i appreciated that day or silly things i like, i generally blog about things that have been on my mind for awhile, things i have spent time thinking about and figuring out and making opinions on. I don't like to mindlessly say things and i like to have reasons for what i am thinking. but why nothing this month? my mind has been just as active and thoughtful. as someone told me today, "you think a lot", and yes i certainly do, probably more than one should...but as of late i feel like i can't grasp my own thoughts. i feel like there are so many bounding about in my head and ricocheting around in my mind that i can't slow any of them down to identify or analyze them. they slip right through my grasp and they land just beyond my reach. Sometimes for a brief moment i will catch one and i will think, "yes, i have some things to say about that. i think i shall blog about it" but of course once the time has come to sit down and gather the thoughts together i have forgotten what i was thinking about in the first place and that beautiful, silvery thought that was mine alone has now floated away again to somewhere only i can find it, but i have lost the map.

urgh.

i am here everyday and we do nothing. you are leaving. i am sorry you feel sad i will be seeing other people before i leave myself, but like i said, i am here everyday. you are the one who is leaving for two weeks. if hanging out with me is so important...why don't you ever do it? and why are you making me feel guilty for having plans? how many days have i said, "hey lets do something?" and how many times have you said "yes"?

thats what i thought.

Thimble

Today my parents returned from a short trip. My mother and I were sitting in the living room and my mom looked up, smiled, and said to me, "your dad has something for you." Now, as souvenirs go my dad does not have the best track record....i have certainly received some jewelry of questionable taste over the years; but none of that really mattered because it was from my dad.

I could fill a million pages with how much I love my dad... he is why i am who i am.

anyway, i stood up and went over to my dad who was exiting his study and walked over to him grinning a playful grin which he matched when he looked at me. He then reached out and handed me two small balled up rolls of white gift wrap tissue. I took them and started to unravel one. i unraveled and unraveled and unraveled. I teasingly paused and glanced up at my dad saying, "is there anything in here...?". "keep going" he assured me. When i finally got to the bottom i opened a small silver thimble with a picture of the homestead on it. The homestead is the hotel my mom and dad had just stayed in on their vacation. my mother and father and i all started giggling and we continued to giggle as i unwrapped the next ball of tissue to find ...ANOTHER thimble. this one was slightly larger and white ceramic with a picture of a mountain and "utah" emblazoned over the top. We all burst out laughing and i hugged my dad and thanked him. My mom said, "i tried to get him to only buy one, but he had to buy them both!" he hugged me back gave me a kiss on the cheek and gently poked my sides to tickle me.

now, this is the very best part. Why is it you think my dad returned from this vacation bearing not one, but two thimbles for me? ....because i was "knitting". In actuality i was crocheting. and even more importantly neither one of those activities requires a thimble or runs the risk of being pricked by a needle.

"why is this the best part?" one might wonder. i will tell you. it is the best part because it means that my dad paid such close attention to me to notice that i was sitting in the living room "knitting" as we watched tv. it means he listened as i mentioned in passing that i was going to need more yarn. it means he was interested in what i was doing. it means he wanted to help me. It means he cares that i don't prick my fingers. It means he loves me.

That is why i now think a thimble just might be one of the greatest gifts...

You'll see the sun come shining through if you just smile...

Today you made me smile. and the smile bubbled up from deep inside my belly all the way out the tips of my hair. If felt refreshing and at the same time...somehow expected. but it was still surprising. and it planted a smile on these lips. thank you.

OOOOh, AHHHH, OHHHHH...

I really do love the 4th of July.

My favorite part is going to go see the fireworks.

fireworks are magical.

My whole family packs up blankets and drives over to louisville and we always get there too late to park anywhere near where the fireworks are so we all lug our blankets and chairs a good half mile to get to the park. then we must of course find the perfect spot amidst all the other celebrators and once we do we lay down the blankets and all of us huddle together and listen to the band play while we wait for the light to drip from the sky before the spectacle begins.

it is just one of the most wonderful feelings ever.

happy fourth of July

A little poetry on a Saturday.

I love this poem. It is by a German Poet. Rainer Maria Rilke. I love a lot of what he has to say actually...about seeing people and solitude and love and art and life. anyway...

"Love Song"

How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn't touch your soul? How can I raise
it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote
lost objects, in some dark and silent place
that doesn't resonate when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin's bow,
which draws one voice out of two separate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song.

Thanks For Being My Balloons

Thanks for being my Balloons. I know that you have no idea you are being my balloons right now, but you are. you are making me feel lifted and you aren't even trying. We make a funny pair you and me. We are so different but somehow we make sense. if you weren't in my life i would be different. you challenge me and you make me consider even silly (yet interesting) things, like, "how many of the people out there in the world that i could be happy with speak english?". I know you really care about me and you respect my opinion on things. You make me feel smart and interesting and like i could give something valuable to the world. and i appreciate that. You have listened to me complain about boys and i have heard all your girl stories. you make me laugh, you gross me out, and you humiliate me sometimes...but i always, always have fun with you. and i love you so much.

the other day we were talking and you stopped whatever silliness we were chatting about and, in that serious, "i mean what i am about to say" voice you said, "you are absolutely beautiful" and in that moment i got so close to tears. it was embarrassing. and then of course you said something utterly ridiculous but it didn't matter, you had already made my day.

and also, you call me every single day. i love that. even when we only talk for two minutes it means so much to me that you thought of me and you called. you are interested in my stupid everyday life and that is rare. you are someone in my life who truly truly makes me feel loved. and i hope you know how much i truly truly love you.

thank you. thank you for being my balloons.

crack

yesterday i felt the crack in my heart with your name on it grow just a little deeper. it hurt. Everytime you do this it gets deeper and deeper and i wonder how many more times it will take before you cut all the way through and just break it.

And by now all i can do is is wonder how many times i am going to fight for something you won't. how many times am i going to lose all my pride and beg you to be with me? how long until you grow up? how long till i matter at all? of course, i know somewhere in me that i am never going to stop fighting for you. i love you too damn much. i know cause i love you more than you love me.

i almost started crying last night when i found out there was another battle to be had and i didn't even know it was coming. i didn't cry because i wasn't alone, but i felt my eyes sting in that all too familiar way. you know the what the worst part was? it was the part where you gave up. the part where you said, "i have accepted it". that crushed me.

and I am sorry i hurt you. I didn't even know i did. I still wouldn't if it hadn't been for someone else. after all this time you can't bring yourself to talk to me? I must not be a very good friend to you, and i apologize for that.

today, you sent me a message. it didn't say anything about how you feel. but, it was something. and it was you reaching out a little. it was you fighting just a little bit...and it made me feel like that crack with your name on it started to heal just a little.

thank you.

please don't give up ever. fight for our friendship. it matters. i know it does.

why would you want a cloudless sky?

Recently I am in to cloud watching. Clouds in Colorado are different than clouds in california. Here clouds are monstrous and billowing. I am fairly certain there are not only shapes in the clouds but entire stories, entire worlds mapped out up there. And really it almost takes your breath away. When i was a kid i always wished i could play up there in the clouds. I wanted to jump around on them like a trampoline and snuggle myself up in them like the worlds most gigantic pillow (which actually must be something that exists...and i would be very interested in it). I wanted to play hide and seek in them and grow old there. There is magic up there in the clouds. when the light hits them just right. Some part of me feels like the clouds are home in a way. and the truth of the matter is that i still want to play in them.

people who need people are the luckiest people

people are so very important. life is people.

...

it bothers me just a little every time i come to my blog and see that the picture at the top does not fit in the frame the layout gives it! but...i really like the picture...

thoughts on your thought.

if nothing ever pulled our attention away from everything we would know nothing at all.

it is not that we have forgotten "everything". we have just noticed something.

great expectations.

People are very rarely what you expect them to be.

most of the time they are better.

sometimes they are worse...

sometimes you knew someone and you wonder how they ended up the way they did.

and it breaks your heart a little because you knew how brilliant and clever this person was, and how much opportunity they should have had.

But sometimes people surprise you. and thats the thing about people. thats what makes them great.

Float

Do you know what is remarkable? The way blowing bubbles can calm and cheer you at least a little bit, no matter what has gone wrong.

The world will always envy lovers...as time goes by

To tell you the truth I thought it would be easier to be kissed...

as of today, june 22, 2009, it has been 21 years, 8 months, and 15 days. I am still waiting.

In the film "little Women" Amy says, "I have waited my whole life to be kissed, and what if i miss it?" I often feel that way.

Part of me is worried that I will miss it because I am too afraid. Afraid of kissing the wrong person or afraid of what it would mean to kiss someone. Not to mention, now that it has been so long I have built this kiss up a lot in my head and I want it to mean something. I think people have lost the value of such important romantic things...like holding hands. or kissing. To so many people a kiss is not very valuable. it is something they give away to people who are nearly strangers. But that is not the way it is for me. As corny and silly as it sounds when i say it out loud, or write it down as the case may be now, I think a kiss is valuable. I think it is being vulnerable and giving away a part of yourself. I never want to be someone people can say, "who hasn't made out with her?" (A phrase I heard used the other day about one of my dear friends.) I want whoever the man may be that i let kiss me to know I am not doing it simply because I appreciate the meal he purchased me or because I think he is so attractive I just can't help myself, but instead because he means something to me and I care enough about this kiss that I will never regret it and I will remember, no matter what happens, who he is and why I gave a little bit of myself to him.

another reason i am worried i will miss it is the reason that makes me hate myself just a little bit (which is more than enough) for even acknowledging. i am afraid no one will ever want to kiss me. There is a small but powerful part of me that refuses to believe this, but the thought creeps up on me more steadily as time goes on because the truth of the matter is that I have no reasonable evidence to show that anyone ever will want me. No one has yet. How old do you think the average person is when they get their first kiss? i have a hunch it is a long time before they reach 22. My Gosh...i am going to graduate college and never even held someone's hand.

I wish I knew what it was that made someone like someone else. Or the reason no one has liked me. But I am not like other girls who would change themselves or pretend to be something they aren't. The fact of the matter is that i like who i am. I know what I want, and what i believe, and who i am. And I am very independent. I learned to be that way. I like that. I am happy. I like knowing that i can do it on my own...but that doesn't mean that is the way i would choose it to be.

i already hate this blog. it makes me feel like every other man-crazy girl i hate. but that doesn't make it any less true.

Stir CrAzY...

I am going insane. I have absolutely nothing to do. I hate that. I hate that I sleep until after noon. I need stuff to do. I need to have some adventures. I need to be busy. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

the end.

a case of the empties

"Sometimes someone says something really small and it just fits into this empty place in your heart." My So-Called-Life

I read this the other day, and then i couldn't get it out of my head. I feel like in some way i need this. I don't even know what the empty place is or why its there, but i am suddenly aware of it.
I guess i am just waiting for the something small...
it will come. i know it.

Up Up and Away

This is a movie that makes you realize the beauty of your life and what it can be if you let it. Go see it. it is beautiful.

to be...

sometimes I wish I thought just a little less. just a little mind you, but still.
sometimes I wish I thought a little less, and lived a little more.