Some Writing.

I wanted to return to you. 
As I closed my eyes I pictured everything I could remember about you. Your hair. Your smile. The shirt you were wearing. The way you smelled. Your arms around me. Your laugh. 
I pictured everything until you were almost there. Just almost within reach… 
I wanted to grab your hand. I wanted to follow you into warmth of my mind. I wanted you to lead me through the narrow hallways and the too small rooms and the places with no light. I wanted to walk through the movie theaters full of my memories and I wanted you to close my eyes when it got to the bad parts. 
I wanted to watch you walk. I wanted to walk after you, a few steps behind. I wanted to let you wander on your own but then I wanted to find you later sitting in a stairwell with a friend, laughing and telling stories. I wanted to walk up and sit with you and say nothing. 
I wanted to think you were real. 
And then it got to the point where I couldn’t figure out how you’re not. I’m infinitely clever but I do not believe I could have created the way you smelled or the way your hair fell on your forehead. If I created you, then I would know your story; you wouldn’t be so fascinating. Your laugh wouldn’t have mesmerized me. You couldn't have said, touched, thought things that I never considered before. You’d be just another part of me that I already knew. 
So I wanted to follow you. 
I wanted to know who you were and how you got in to my mind. I needed to know what trapped you there, both because I wanted to let you free and because I needed to know how to reinforce it.
But mostly I wanted to return to you. 
To fall asleep and find you over and over again.

you were supposed to keep the disease between you and me.

I have a memory of something that never happened.
Blood splattered on tile and someone, anyone, crying, kneeling in it.
Me, behind them, arms around the shoulders, shifting razors away slowly so that they won't notice.
Bandaging them up. Telling them it's going to be okay.
And I've had this memory for as long as I can remember.
And it's never happened.
Maybe I dreamed it once. Maybe I have heared one too many suicide threats that my mind built a memory out of the fear they brought.
Maybe I just need to save you.

Endings

If even for a second someone starts talking about school this week I am first to jump up and list off all of the homework I have to do over this Thanksgiving break. Which is a lot. While working full time. While trying to fit in friends that are home for break. While dealing with car problems. While making time for family. It's extremely overwhelming.

Seriously. I've had no less than four panic attacks about it already. And have I even started the three papers I have to do this week? Of course not. Which means I have three papers to do within the next three days. Joy. 

I often get just so... overwhelmed. I get so hung up on all of these little things that I am stressing about and life just seems awful when I do that. 

But today... This Thanksgiving I am so extremely grateful that things end. 

I know that sounds weird. But it's the truth. 

I am SO grateful that in the next three weeks, after five papers, one workshop, one revision, four finals, and a lot of crying.... it will all be over. This extremely busy semester will just be done. 

I am so grateful that even though this year started off terrible and my dad broke his hip and then had to get his kidney removed because of cancer and it was SCARY... it ended. And my dad is fine and the surgeries are over and the fear is gone and everything is fine now that that's done. 

I am so grateful that after 17 days of self torture, I finished a book. 

I am so grateful that even though I got hit by a car and I didn't get my new car for a month because of repairs, the repairs are done. (mostly... just gotta take it in one more time!) 

I am so grateful today that all of the stresses, terribly classes, bad relationships, horrible heartbreaks, numbing fear, huge projects, periods of lost faith.... End. 

Today I'm full of gratitude. 

Today I know things are going to be okay. Because all bad things end eventually. 

20,000 words.

I'm 20,000 words in with my latest novel and as I reach the halfway mark I feel half empty. 
Not fully. Just almost half empty. Like all I have in me is words and I threw 20,000 of them at a blank screen and left them there, leaving their places empty inside of me.
I'm 20,000 words in with my latest novel and I feel like the most real parts of me have been hidden underneath those 20,000 words and now they're unearthed. 
Like all of that anxiety and self hatred and those dreams and hopes and plans and repressed memories and all that love was always there but buried underneath 20,000 words. Just waiting for me to find it. 
I'm 20,000 words in with my latest novel and I feel alone.
Like for the last year there have been voices in my head telling me a story and now I'm 30,000 words away from putting them completely on paper, giving them a home, and they won't be here anymore. 
I'm 20,000 words in with my latest novel and I have spent so much time already forming and creating and planning these people and this world and everything about them that I have forgotten who I am. I am 20,000 words closer to realizing that I've never known who I am without these made up people.
And I don't know how to handle the real world. 

For now.

It's midnight on a school night and I'm staying up to write a post because I'm a 21 year old college student who doesn't know what she's doing.

Being 21 sorta feels like being blindfolded and shoved in a group of people who are all walking in different directions and having to pick one.
There's people all around me moving quickly and there's people moving very very slow and there's people who are walking in circles and there's people who are screaming at the top of their lungs as they go and... and it's like a constant buzz. A constant slew of directions to take and people to follow and advice being thrown at me.
And I have no idea where I'm going.
I just have a blindfold on and I'm just sorta walking.
I wish I had some sort of advice or words of knowledge or just something to pull from this and share with you.
I wish I could say that walking blindfolded is okay and everyone is doing it and you'll figure it out one day.
But uh, I'm walking blindfolded. So for all I know, I'm about to walk off a cliff.

For now, I thiiiink it's okay. I think most everyone is doing it. And I think you'll figure it out one day.
If not, I'll meet you at the bottom of that cliff.
But I guess, at least you're walking. Right?

Smiling in Winco (and why you should do it)

The other week, I went to Winco and there was this lady pushing a cart. A little girl next to her, whom I assume was her daughter, reached up to take her hand. She grabbed it for a moment and the mom shook it off, looking extremely miserable. The little girl just looked up at her and looked so, SO sad while her mom just continued walking, not even looking down at her.
And after months of feeling pretty okay and happy and like I have control of my life, I felt like the world was so much sadder than I ever thought it was before.
I walked through Winco after that just hoping I'd see a happy face there. And, I mean, it's Winco, not Disneyland, so I wasn't expecting pure joy or anything like that. But maybe just a small smile after finding the perfect bananas or a slight laugh when the person you just passed made a joke about the meat or just... something. I just needed something to show me that the world wasn't so sad.
And I didn't get that. Instead I saw couples yelling at each other over which oatmeal to get and husband and wife walking ten feet away from each other and grown men making fun of their teenage sons who kept begging them to not do this is public. 
By the time I got back to my car, I was so sad it was hard for me to breathe. And I know that sounds ridiculous but I'm also the girl who cried during The Incredibles once, so it's not like it takes a lot to push me over the edge.
And since then, I haven't really figured out how to forget about this. 
It's like, I'm there one second having this great time with my great friends, and the next second my mind is like, "No wait Maren remember Winco?" and suddenly my heart hurts.
There's just so much sadness in the world that I can't fix and I don't know how to just accept that. With my ridiculous and constant need to help people and give advice and make sure people are happy, I don't know how to deal when I can't do it all.
And then it hit me. 
I'm one of those people. 
While I'm walking through Winco looking for a smiling face, I'm not smiling. If there was someone else walking through Winco right then noticing all the sad things I was noticing and praying to see one happy person, I wasn't that person for them. I was just another sad face. 
And maybe this is what they mean when they talk about the domino effect.
Maybe all we need to change is ourselves. Maybe I don't actually need to fix everything, maybe I just need to be that one smiling face for the other people out there like me. (Except I'm starting to think I'm just insane, I dunno.) 
But really. Maybe that's it.
Maybe if you just smile you'll make someone else smile and then you're not the only one in the room smiling. 

I guess... I guess I don't know if this is what I really learned from this, or at all what I was supposed to learn. I've figured out a few other things about myself because of this too, actually. And I don't know which thing I learned was "right" or anything. But I'm just going to put this out there because if I go to Winco and you see me there, I want you to know that I need you to smile at me so that I don't feel consumed with all the sadness in the world for a week after.
That's all. 

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.

Prone to leave the God I love. 

Here's my heart, 
Oh, take and seal it.
Seal it for thy courts above. 

I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel so lost and so everywhere at once that things get... confusing. 
There's all these questions about who I am and where I'm going and what I even want to do with my life. 
On one hand, I know the answer to all of those questions. 
On the other hand, I'm constantly wondering what if I'm wrong. 

Because there's so many places to go and people to meet and jobs to take and words to write and things to learn, how am I ever supposed to know if I'm in the right place? 

I think we put too much pressure on knowing. 
We spend too much time asking people what their major is or what school they're going to or how their love life is or what types of jobs they want or where they see themselves in ten years or when they are putting in their mission papers or when they are planning on having kids and things such as. 
And we spend hardly any time asking about dreams and feelings and the complete absurdness of it all. The complete lack of knowing. 
Why aren't we comfortable with not knowing? Why aren't we comfortable with the idea that what I want and love today might be 100% different when I wake up tomorrow? Maybe I simply don't know what I'm doing at all. Maybe I'm just sorta doing it.

And maybe this isn't just about whether I'm going to go for my masters after I finish my undergraduate or if I'm gonna join the peace corps or if I'm gonna get married or if I'm gonna serve a mission or whatever. Maybe I'm unsure about a lot more things than what I'm going to do tomorrow. 
Maybe my testimony isn't always a sure thing.
Maybe my love for God isn't always a sure thing. 
Maybe my faith in God's plan isn't always a sure thing. 
Maybe I  have no idea where I stand in His eyes and maybe tomorrow I'll be a saint and maybe two months from now I will be crying and praying and wondering who I am. 
And why aren't we okay with that?
Why do we get uncomfortable when people tell us that they don't know? That they've faltered, fallen off the wagon, were never totally sure? 
And then why do we try to explain it and make sense of it?
If someone comes to you and says, "I don't know if God exists today," you don't need to question it. You don't need to make sense of it. Because things like that don't always make sense. Sometimes there's no reason. 

We are prone to wander. 
We are prone to be confused. About anything and everything. 
Things don't always make sense and they don't need to. We don't need plans and structures and timelines set up for us. 
We just need to live this messy life and be confused sometimes and know exactly what we're doing other times. We need to change identities on a sometimes weekly basis.
And most of all, what we need is to know that this is okay. 
And that in the end, we will always end up exactly where we are meant to be. 
Just wander, and you'll get there. 

On being forgotten.

There are some people that just walk into my life and the moment I meet them I know that I will never be the same again.
It's not like things change right then, but over time, they kinda just ruin everything. They take things I've known all my life and make them in to something entirely different.
It's things like french fries and NyQuil and rubber-bands. Places like stairwells and seminary buildings and drama sheds.
And then they just kinda leave. Not all at once, just, you know, they slowly fade away. And that's just a part of life. One moment they are teaching you that you should never wear brown shoes with a black jacket and then the next thing you know it's five years since he said it and two years since he died. Time passes and the people who changed everything are just sorta gone.
I think, sometimes, I spend too much time thinking about them. I just spend all of this time thinking about how they changed everything and now they are gone and I think that they probably don't even remember me.  I'm just little insignificant Maren. It happens all too often that I'm walking through Walmart one day and I see a face of someone who hugged me when I was sad in the hallway one time and instead of saying hi, I look down and decide not to bother them. Not because I don't love them still, but because I think they've forgotten me and how awkward would that be to have to remind them of everything when it meant so much to me?
Of course this isn't exactly logical. But don't we all sorta do this to some extent? Convince ourselves that everyone else can make these huge differences in our lives but we can't do anything to theirs?
Wouldn't it be interesting to know who you've changed though?
Just for a moment I want you to realize that there are probably people who think about you on a weekly, if not daily, basis. They tell stories of  you and laugh about the good times. They stalk your facebook occasionally to make sure you're alright. They miss you.
You're not just someone who remembers everyone and was forgotten.
People leave, but that doesn't mean they forget.
Sometimes you walk into someone's life and they just know they will never be the same again.

Did you think this would all be much easier than it's turned out to be?

So here I am.
just like always. 
Wondering, like always, when it will be my turn.

Dear love of my life, 
Hurry. I want to love you.
I want you to know how much I already do.
please.
Love,
Maren.

left over words

And what if I ran out of words years ago but I keep pulling from my piles and piles of already used thank you's and I'm sorry's and hello's and nice to meet you's and I love you's and goodbye's?
What if you're only getting hand-me-downs out of every word I speak, nothing original, nothing meant for you, nothing fitting just right?
What if I hand you a "hello" with a hole in the side, only big enough for a finger to fit in but that you're still able to see right through?
What if the "you look good today" doesn't fit in the shoulders, almost there but you just need to grow, gain a pound or two to fit in it like he used to?
What if the "I'm alright" looks like everyone in the town has thrown it on the ground and stomped on it before returning it to me, moments before giving it to you?
And what if I ran out of any original words and thoughts and emotions to give you? What if I'm using the left overs, the stuff no one wanted, the stuff they gave back?
Would you take it anyway?
What if it's all I have, and I want to give it only to you?
Can you wear a torn and sewn back together "I love you"?

And what if I'm still here?

What if, when it all comes down to it, I'm still standing in the same place as I was 3 years ago?
While everyone else walks on, passing glances, momentary visits, hurrying off to where they need to be, and I'm still here.
Because I'm too scared to go anywhere else.

but what if once upon a time I felt like this was where I was supposed to be and how do I go against that so close to the end when I have no desire to be anywhere else?
what if I'm just freaking out because I feel like you're looking at me as the girl who never moved.? 
maybe I am just the girl who never moved.

How to be broken Revision (AKA How to be happy)

So here I sit. Completely... happy. 

You know, I knew it would be alright. I knew it would be the most trying thing thrown at me thus far in my life, and I knew I would get through it. I could feel it in every fiber of my being while I prayed. I guess, I just had this undying hope that it would happen sooner, faster. And that hope consumed me.

So here I am to write it out. And the "how to" format seems to have escaped me for two years now as I look at the keyboard. How could I talk about the lessons I learned as if it were simple enough to write a guide to? I couldn't, and can't still, explain any of it accurately enough. I don't even know how to describe it. Where would I start? Would I begin with explaining what it's like to think the Lord has abandoned you completely? Or do I begin by first explaining the answers I received much later? Or maybe I could just start explaining the way it feels to sit in a car and pray and pray and wonder when the answers are going to come or the love is going to be felt or the trial is going to be over. See what I mean? I have no idea where to start.

I've cried harder than I've ever thought possible. I've hurt more than I thought I would.
And I wouldn't take any of it back.

Now, don't get me wrong. Yes, I probably hated it at the time. That's usually how it goes. Although, I don't anymore. Not like I used to. But I understand now how it worked for my life. How it aided the overall plan. But there's something about the way it felt that nothing else had ever felt like before. Like part of me was missing. I thought maybe it was my left leg. Then realized that no, maybe just the left lung. That's what was making it hard to breathe. But in reality, it was my testimony that was missing. My faith in His plan. 

I did learn something from it then. That I'm my own person and I should rely on myself and no one else. That life moves on. That the Lord knows what He's doing. That faith is all it takes sometimes. That time passes even when you don't move. That life is lived better outside of my bed.

I didn't feel like I was learning anything except for that I would never be good enough. But I've reached that level of goodness that I want in my life. Not perfect, no. But a level I'm content with now and a level that is a good enough foundation.

So yeah. I moved on. But I didn't want to. I wanted to miss everything. I want to feel it. I wanted my life to stand still.
But that was my time to be sad. So heartbreakingly sad. (My computer still thinks heartbreakingly isn't a word. I'm still fairly sure it is.) But I was on the mend without even knowing. Life moves on.

And for now, I'm gonna go crawl in bed and dream of days that are waiting on my horizon. And when I wake up, I promise to appreciate every moment that I breathe a thousand times more than I did today. But if I forget my promise... I'll repeat this process again tomorrow night. Maybe one day I'll remember that I am loved.
And I am happy. 

 

Understanding the way someone else's heart breaks.

I want to talk about everything.
Sometimes, I want to sit down with someone and tell them my life story. Tell them everything, just to make them understand.
The nice thing about friends is that they already know most of it. So when something happens now, they should understand.
The terrible thing about friends is that they don't really know. It's not enough.
When a heart is broken... it's very individualized.
No one situation is exactly the same as another. If my heart has been broken, it's not the same as yours.
So when people try to hand out advice, it's easy to turn your head, roll your eyes, and nod. Because it's almost like you could talk all day, explaining every single detail about how you feel and what led up to that and how you think you're going to feel tomorrow and all the little details but no one is going to understand.
No one.
They'll nod and they'll cry with you and they will say "When I went through something similar..." and then try to give you advice. But that advice isn't going to work for you. Not always.
Almost two years ago I sat right here in this exact place with this exact light on with this exact computer under my fingertips and I typed out my heart break. And almost every day for a few months after that I sat right here and wrote.
I wrote to make people understand.
But not just any people.
I wanted my friends to understand in a way that I couldn't express through talking. I wanted them to read it and just get it and know what to say and how to say it and how to fix me.
And I wanted there to be someone like me in the world. I wanted someone to google something and run in to my blog and spend all night reading it and then message me and say "I'm going through the same exact thing." Then we could talk for hours and everything would feel okay because I wouldn't be alone.

"You know how in Once Upon a Time they take out people's hearts and crush them?"

Yes. Yes I do.
And I imagine I know what it feels like. All the little stages. The moment right before when everything is fine. The moment when you're facing the terrible situation and know what's going to happen. The moment the hand is in your chest and is about to rip your heart out. The moment it's out, beating at someone else's mercy. And the moment they squeeze it, just enough to have you on your knees.

Here's the thing.
No one understands. Not like you want them to or need them to.
No one does and no one will.
But here's what you have to understand: Everyone knows.
A heartbreak is still a heartbreak. The stages are the same.
Whether your heart is broken because the world is evil or because you may lose a sick loved one or you're dealing with a death or because you lost the only love you want. It is the same at the core.
And people pull through it.

Two years ago I explained it by saying that I felt as though I had lost a lung. You know, you can live with one lung. But it's uncomfortable, not easy. And it takes a while to get used to. It takes a while to figure out how to get enough air, how to live with one lung when you used to have two. How to get enough oxygen to your brain. How to function normally.
I don't feel like that anymore. But I did for a long time. I felt as if I couldn't walk as fast as I was once able. I couldn't dream far enough. I couldn't live deep enough. All I could focus on was breathing with my one lung.
And it was okay.

I don't know who exactly is reading this. I get a weird variety of people on this blog.
But I need you to know, whoever you are, that you are going to be okay.
I need you to know that breathing is hard at first. Living is hard at first. And that's okay. Focus on that, learn how to simply breathe again. And then maybe next, focus on walking faster. And then after you have both of those down, focus on running again.
A heartbreak is a heartbreak.
Don't expect too much of yourself.
Don't expect to understand it.
Just focus on breathing.