the house on a rock

 I don't believe I ever intended for this thing to be public or a resource. I just know that for six months I've written so I wouldn't forget. I wrote because I needed to. The words were many and the feelings even moreso. I 've ebbed and flowed in grief and joy. In freedom and bondage. It has been maddening and beautiful. Excellent and excruciating. Something I can't believe I've been blessed enough to live and driven me to the point of wanting to take my own life. I've thrived and been suicidal. Heavily so.  Today the depression is back as it was a month ago. Yesterday, too. It's been heavy. Almost unbearably so. I'd like to think I'd never go through with it. I think my sound judgement will win each time but it's scary to think of those times when I genuinely just do not care anymore. I don't want to die; I just don't want to feel this way anymore. The feelings always fade. Replaced by laughter or reminders that this, too, shall pas...

 I have sat on this for so long-wrestling with what I hope to be true and what actually is. It's really the best thing. I'm broken and guarded. Afraid and equally not. I just love you. I just freaking do. This blog started as love letters to Jesus and my fear is that they're turning into love letters to you. That I'm replacing Christ with you and holding you to a standard you've should never be. I'm so afraid I'm going to love you too much and for not long enough. That I'll be in this constant state of healing and reflection that I'll never be well enough to commit to anything besides friendly. But in my heart I am safe and I am so, so known. I am deeply and intimately loved. Cherished and adored. It's likely the most tangible example of love I've known and I thank God for a chance to feel that. To feel even a fraction of the love He has for me through you.  You make me a priority. You consider my feelings and show interest in who I am and wh...

I’m the one who does everything for everyone all the time. The one who sees needs before the person even realizes they need them. The one who does the thing, buys the thing, does the task so you don’t have to, and on and on and on. I’m the one who works, begging to be seen. The one who is too much and not enough all at the same time. The one who has tried for a decade to wrap her head around why, despite all the doing-being wasn’t enough. The frustration at that is minimal. The sadness is extreme. And though I’ve taken steps to get out every day for 3650 days, I’m at the door and can’t fathom what’s to come. But I’ll be able to breathe. Everything gets muddled when you can’t breathe. You can’t see or perform. Over time your ability to do things for anyone-including yourself- gets lost in the shuffle. Breathing is essential to life and, believe me when I say, I’ve been dead for a long time. So long that I'm coming out on the other side an entirely different person who’s still figuri...

 I've been a 'good Christian girl' for as long as I can remember. A rule follower with a sensitive conscience and a desire to love everyone and be loved in return. With a few scandalous years mixed in between, you could call me at my core a goody two shoes. I challenge that sometimes with rap music I listen to and some of my clothing choices but my heart is about as big as they come. Life for me has been pretty black and white. There's right and wrong and that's it. There's Republican and Fox news and then lies. There's good people who look and act like us and then there's those who are wrong who we must show them how to be more like us to make them more right. I've bought into this for decades, and thought my heart has always been one that didn't believe I was being manipulative, rather that I was actually helping people be better by subconsciously diving into my own tightly held belief systems. I'd show them. I'd love them so much that ...

 I've traded one relationship for another my entire life. In fact I don't know that there has ever been a time in my life that I wasn't interested in someone, one foot in the door and the other out. I know this is deeply rooted in insecurity and an uncertainty in who I am and Whose I am. This has ebbed and flowed over time but has done me a large disservice. I was first engaged in 2006 to my college sweetheart who I treated as anything but. I couldn't remain physically or emotionally faithful to him because, frankly, I didn't want to. I had such a desire to run and play with reckless abandon while desperately wanting someone to love me. I didn't know me to love me so how could I expect anyone else to? It wasn't fair to ask someone else to love me more than I did. After years of off and on dating he rightly ended things for good. I moved out of our apartment that he cosigned on but never lived in October of 2008.  I moved in with my parents and reconnected wi...

 there's nothing pretty about divorce. nothing pretty about packing and spending thousands of dollars to rebuild a new home. a home that you wanted and couldn't wait to get into. there's the idea of what it'll be like and then the actual living it out. though you still feel in your heart you made the right decision there is ease in the comfort of what's been for so long. a security in the toxicity. an uncomfortably comfortable predictability that though interactions will be loud, terse, or completely absent, it's still all you've known. the finality of it all sets in and the realization that there's nothing you can do about it because it's the most wise thing you can do will level you. but you'll put pants on (or not) and pack the boxes of memories and things bought with shared money. you'll wonder if you'd stuck it out just a day, week, month, year longer would the result have been different. and the converse-should you have stayed you...