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xos_der
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Name: Katrina
Metro: Madison
Gender: Female
Interests: the red sox. books. writing. journaling. words. words. words. stuart the cat - themostwonderfullestbeautifullest
meanestgreatestcatever.
the red sox.
Expertise: some days the red sox. some days myself. some days the books that i read. but most days nothing.
Occupation: Supervisory
Industry: Other
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
11/25/2005
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'I can't do this Sam.'
'I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mister Frodo, the ones that really matter. Full of darkness and danger they are. And sometimes you don't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was, when so much bad happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those are the stories that stay with you--that meant something. Even if you are too small to understand why. But I think Mister Frodo, I do understand, I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back--only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding onto something.'
'What are we holding onto Sam?'
'There's some good in this world, Mister Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.' | | |
| it hit me recently that im not a teenager anymore. i mean...i had my
birthday a few weeks ago. i turned twenty, its pretty obvious im not a
teenager anymore. and yet, in the few weeks since then i have been more
spontaneous and 'reckless' than i was my entire teenage career. by
reckless i mean things that probably aren't reckless in other peoples
minds and probably are the normal type behavior for people my age.
things like staying out till three in the morning, buying things for
myself (not in excess, but not forbidding all such purchases), laughing
a lot more than normal (the past two weekends in a row i thought i
would literally die from laughing so hard, on multiple accounts),
attempting crazy pranks...watching tv and feeling free to not
finish a movie (im still in the middle of two - one only twenty minutes
from the end, but i don't feel too obliged to complete it)...reading
books (harry potter) that i want to read instead of just sticking with the ones i know i should
read. these things are all pretty revolutionary coming all at once. i
know this probably sounds really funny, and maybe it is really funny.
but mostly i think some of the knots that have kept my mind and actions
bound are beginning to come undone.
discipline is a good thing,
responsibility is a good thing - my flesh is weak and tends to stray.
and because of that i have kept it way in check...beat my body and mind
and schedule into submission to the things i know are right. there is
nothing wrong with that. im sure i probably needed it, especially in
the transition season between highschool and real life. i've learned a
lot and put a lot of structures into place - not legalistic structures,
just firm structures. and now the lines are beginning to blur a little
bit more as my heart begins to live a little bit more and my flesh is
not completely my enemy. it is being conditioned for good things...the
actions i repeat over and over, the good ones, will be ingrained into
my physical memory. but the phenomenon now is that intuition is taking
over, good things are still happening without me pushing for them with
all my might. the days of dry repetition and "im going to do this
because i know its good even though it doesn't feel good" are beginning
to be less. i am who i am, and i have more instinctive feel for life
and what needs to get done and how it gets done and the space my mind
and heart need to get it done.
and none of this is to say my discipline is going down the drain. or
that im throwing all the structure down the tubes. im not forsaking
responsibility or throwing caution to the wind. im simply learning how
to enjoy myself as me. life can be happy. and i need to let it be
happy, enjoyable, not just a rigid set of requirements to fulfill with
a set number of goals to accomplish each week. that kind of
determination and dedication is pretty amazing, i don't know where i
got it. maybe its the part of me that is fearful that if i breathe
deeply and let life just flow freely then all the good will evaporate.
most of my life has been a pattern of sadness and depression, darkness
and angst, loss and death and darkness and every bright light being
extinguished as soon as i recognized it as light. it has just happened
every time. the greatest expectation in my heart is one that expects
things to go wrong, for good things to get messed up, for hope to be
stolen from me - for all the beautiful things to be brutally murdered
and drained of their lifeblood right before my eyes. in the past two
years i have experienced more goodness than i could have ever imagined
i would experience in an entire lifetime. that right there is enough to
make me kind of panicky in my spirit. "don't breathe too heavily, don't
step too quickly, don't move a muscle" - its like being on a landmine.
a landmine of goodness? what a crazy image...something so good, a life
so good, a god so good, truth so good that the only possible end to this fairy tale story is death, destruction - an explosion and a lot of bloodshed.
and so i kicked in to discipline mode. i know enough not to trust my
heart, not to trust my own intrepretation of life, and my instincts
about how life should work. when you have been walking around your
whole life in a world where down is up and up is down, getting
reoriented can be a little tricky. i knew i couldn't just expect myself
to be acclimated right away, or then things might have really exploded.
so i put my nose to the grindstone and did the thing. i learned how to
live.
but now i feel like im coming to life. its a pretty amazing feeling.
the lines have been rehearsed in my head so many times...im beyond
memorization and to the point where i feel like i am becoming the
script, becoming the words that i have spoken over myself and that
others have spoken over me.
its like...experiencing a phenomenally wonderful sunrise. the night is
dark, and so is the wee morning. everything is cold and hidden amidst
shadows that cover everything with a thick blanket of blackness. but
then the sky slowly begins getting lighter...a few minutes a time, by
degrees, the level of darkness decreases and the light becomes more
tangible, measurable and noticeable. but its a process of hours
sometimes before the sun actually is up, before you could consider the
sky "light." all the colors are dull and gray in the process, you know
its going to be light but in the moment nothing looks colorful or full
of life, its hard to distinguish between both shape and color...but
slowly the lines become more defined and slowly the colors come into
their own. and then finally you can see. it sneaks up on you...one
moment you think it will never get there, and then you blink and when
you open your eyes the sky is light and blue and beaming... and the day has truly begun and soon you will even see the sun's smiling face.
thats how this feels to me. im opening my eyes from a few off months -
an emotional blink if you will - and now i can feel the warmth, i can
see the blue sky, i can even ...smile, and laugh freely in this place.
my life is no longer threatened. im not walking the line between life
and death anymore. i am smothered in life and drowning in good things.
and for that reason i can breathe deeper and appreciate more greatly
the blessings god has given me. the good choices that i have made are
finally catching up with me. my body isn't always at the point of break
down and my emotions aren't always heading towards negative things. and
it feels really, really good.
i don't feel panicky anymore. i don't feel afraid that it will all
disappear. i don't wig out when things aren't going perfectly. i trust
the goodness, and i trust him in the goodness. i trust that even if it
all exploded i would be ok - i would have him, and that is all i need.
everything else is just a complimentary piece of the puzzle to that
which is primary. i know him. and thats all that matters to me. evil
cannot dwell with him, and no dark thing can survive within him. the
intensity of light that he is and that he bears and that he shares is
so great i simply cannot stand before it. i am in him. he is in me. is
it possible for darkness or depression or death to steal my life away
ever again if that is the case? i am confident in my position within
him, and his within me. i am not threatened by darkness or sadness or
even the mazes my own mind trys to conjure to trip me up. all that
fades in the light of his face. i could go on forever about this,
trying to express it more suavely or explain it more clearly...but i
hope you get the point.
god is real. his goodness is real. the darkness is not. it just is not.
i suppose this is proof - for me, if not for you - that even the most
stubborn plants, when cared for correctly, will bear fruit.
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| its just one of those things...life in this massive vortex of pain and suffering and love and life and loss and joy and hope. what a mess, i say. what a mess.
sometimes i wake up drenched in so much fear i don't know which way is up or which way is down, which way is out and which way is home. i just don't know. most days i just don't know - in my heart that is. my head is fine. my logic is a strong as ever - either in a good way or a bad way, theres no telling if you ask me. well i suppose there is. there is always a telling.
my heart feels dark and my spirit feels volatile right now. its just one of those times...one of those times when i see more than i would like to see in myself in the "these things need fixing" sense of the process. not such hot stuff. not much of life is hot stuff though.
there is so much joy - but so much sorrow. such a mix of everything and anything and i just get lost in it. i get lost in myself, i get lost in my heart, i get lost in my depravity. i don't want to stay here and i won't choose to stay here, but this is it right now. this is who i am right now - scared to death (of what? your guess is as good as mine), slightly angry and feeling like a maniac.
drunk on the independence of my heart - is this how i wish to spend my days, my life? this one life that i get...no. it is not. i don't want this. i won't choose this. i will fight this. i will fight all these things that bare their blood-stained teeth at me. correction - he will fight these for me, and i will stand next to him with all the determination i can muster up. this life is a battlefield. its all a battlefield. sometimes i wake up in the morning - even on some mornings when the sky is blue and all seems right side up - and i roll back over and close my eyes and try to go back to sleep so i won't have to feel the pressure of the battle. i don't want to have to fight this every day of my waking life. in truth i don't have to and won't have to. there are seasons of rest and seasons of battle. this is a season of battle. and that makes me want to tell everyone and everything to fuck off so i can try to figure it out. i don't know how to figure it out. i don't know much of anything...
i fight him easily. too easily sometimes. i fight the good things a lot of times. way too many times. im a mess. 'a work in progress' you might say. well it feels like shit, i will say. and then you will go your way and i will go mine...you will wander along your path, fighting sometimes and resting others. so will i. i truly am not alone but in the same breath i truly am.
all i have are tattered shreds of who i was meant to be and small pebbles of the victories that have already been won. pebbles and shreds. not exactly prime temple-building material. these miniscule pieces of matter are far from the tapestries i imagine flowing down walls built out of the strongest stone. the earthquake shook these things right loose. and now im back to the beginning. maybe not the way beginning, but close to it. i still have the building plans. i still have his hand to build it all back up. but mostly i just have anger and pain in my heart.
i trust him. i have to trust him. i have nothing else to trust and no one else to hold on to - least of all myself. my heart has decieved me. my feelings have decieved me. my logic has decieved me. my worldview has decieved me. my past has decieved me. everything that is contained inside of me has decieved me...to the very last hair on my head. his word is all i can trust. his hand on my heart and his words in my ear are the last bit of anything i might have left to grab ahold of. they are the only things, in truth, that i want to grab ahold of.
i don't want any of the other. i don't want any of the lesser. i won't settle for second best. i will strive for him, i will walk to him, i will dance in front of him. i don't want me anymore. i don't want my heart - it has failed me, utterly, and in the process made me very, very angry.
constant vigilance. and absurd levels of trust. those are what shall sustain me as i limp on into whatever my future may bring me to.
i think about it sometimes, about how someday i will make it home. but its not today. today i will cry tears of blood for the innocence that has been lost. i will stagger my way into his presence no matter how hard it may seem or how broken i may feel. i need him. i need him at every step of the way and for every breath to sustain me.
all this turmoil and all these growing pains are nothing more than symptoms of life - true life and eternal life. 'this is eternal life, that they may know me and my father who sent me.' im working on it. he is working on it in me. that is obvious. for that purpose i submit to this process - for the purpose of growing closer to him and knowing him more and allowing the kinks to be worked out...to allow him to restore me to my original intent that i may have right relationship with him primarily and relationship with others secondarily...thats what this is. and for that reason this is a joy to me. i might not admit it right away. but it is. i long for nothing more than to be drawn closer to him, to be taken in deeper to his heart - but how is that possible if i still exist living in the depraved death-ridden conditon i had foolishly imagined was displaced from me?
so i struggle. so i battle. and so i will win. | | |
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Holy Sonnet XIV: Batter my heart
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Batter my heart, three-personed God; for You
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me,'and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to'another due,
Labor to'admit You, but O, to no end;
Reason, Your viceroy'in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly'I love You,'and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto Your enemy.
Divorce me,'untie or break that knot again;
Take me to You, imprison me, for I
Except You'enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except You ravish me.
John Donne (1572-1631)
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