Things I Know

I stole furtive glances and my heart pounded.  Biting the space in between my thumb and forefinger, I hope the moment would pass quickly.  A glance returned shoots ice into my heart.  I bite harder.  Closing my eyes, I silently pray for the blood to return to my face.  The moment passes.  My pulse slowly returns to normal.  The taste of bitter disappointment lingers in my veins.  I close my eyes again.  Steady my hands.   Take a deep breath.  Look up at the door and realize all that is left is that deep bitter taste.  A moment flashes: quietly brushing my hair away from my neck, whispering my name, green eyes and yellow legal pads in coffee shops.  And then it is gone, just like you.

On Monday nights I walk home smelling like coffee and bleach.  I walk home with my nerves frayed the way that only cute boys and good coffee can make you feel.  I walk home with my eyes turned towards the heavens.  Each breath exhales all of the worries of the world.  The cuts and bruises don’t hurt so much on that walk home; the cute boys with pretty girls, the incomplete assignments, the fair-weather friends.   Tonight I will walk home and each breath will hurt.  Each star winking coyly will ask the same question.  Why. Why. Why. Why.  My glacial fingers will intertwine and will silently plead for an answer from the stars.  All-knowing they wink back.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  I will close my eyes and my heart will cry out.  Why. Why. Why. Why.

I forgot your birthday this year.  It slipped past me unannounced.  I know the date just like I know your number and your middle name.   If I were to make a list of “things I know about you” it would be near the top.   It would be on the page next to “things I’ve always wanted to say to you but never been brave enough to” and before the “songs that make me think of you” page.   Time has a funny way of taking the things and people we know best and making them unfamiliar all over again.  I imagine that seeing you again would be a punch to the stomach and after our “hellos” and “how are yous” we’d realize that there is nothing left to say.  I would smile at you and perhaps with a tear sliding down my cheek, I’d grab your hand and squeeze it extra tight as if to say IhopeyouarehappypleaseforgivemeIhavealwayslovedyou .Then you’d look at me with those piercing eyes and understand.  You’d kiss me on the cheek and walk away.  Maybe instead I’d see you and start yelling or better yet I would burst into tears.  Maybe I’d run away and you’d have to come find me.  Or not.   Maybe I would see you and want to kiss you and hold you really tight and never let you go.  Maybe I’d feel all of these things and just stand there awkwardly gaping at you, my seventeen different emotional states all pulling me in different directions so that I’d end up standing still.  The reality is that I forgot your birthday this year.  Slowly the list of things I know about you will grow shorter until I am sitting in a room full of empty sheets of crumpled paper.  And that is okay. 

Steady as a Preacher, Free as a Weed

The swell of the salty waves, cold, grey, and sparkling, against the clear blue sky beckons me in closer.  The cool sand gives as I walk pensively towards the ocean. I embrace the feeling of absolute abandon as I swim further and further into the water. It comes to the moment where it feels like Kate Chopin's Awakening, how far do I go?   When do I stop?  Do I give up here? Here?

Sitting alone on the beach reading gives a feeling of absolute solitude.  A quiet calm washes over me that is both breathtaking and frightening. The kind of quiet people are afraid of; that people fill their lives full of noise to escape from.  At the beach all the quiet crashes down and overwhelms.  I have a chance to really examine all of the waves crashing down all around me.

A shuttle, two whirlwind plane rides, and a twisting drive to the beach house left me wondering why I’d ever decided to travel to down the coast for Thanksgiving with the amount of work I have to do.  I was quickly handed a heaping plate full of food and a glass of wine and peppered with questions about my classes, friends, boyfriend prospects (none to speak of, thanks for asking), the weather, etc. After the initial round of questions, we settled into a rousing (albeit drunken) family game of Citadel, followed later by a trip down to the hot tub.

As the family slowly dispersed to their respective rooms, I began to realize why I agreed to this half-week of madness.  The screaming babies, prayers said in 3 different languages, too many glasses of wine, and midnight card games are just a handful of things I’m grateful for.  Life is changing so quickly all around me that sometimes I need things like the yearly Thanksgiving beach trip to remind me that certain things never change.  The babies will grow up and take their place playing Shanghai and before long it will be my turn to make the apple pies. 

For now though, I’m trying to enjoy the little things:  walking home after a shift at the Grind and looking at the stars, sitting on my bed with Dan listening to Pink Floyd, frigid fingers and toes, dancing to “Don’t Stop Me Now”, going to church alone Sunday mornings, so many bandaids, laughing with strangers in the airport, sitting in Starbucks with my daddy, taco dip, singing Airplanes with JKarp at College Park Landing.  Life is so very good. In a way that not one song, a phrase, a single feeling can encompass. It is like the feeling after a day on a boat that can only be described as having too much sun, wind, and salt water in your hair.  I’m incredibly blessed for all the beautiful people in my life that are right there beside me when I’m talking to my water bottle, hugging trees, face-planting on bricks, simply shaking their heads saying “oh, Lauren… not again…”

She Danced

Folds of silky material

made ripples on her

spinning body. Faster.

Faster. Faster. She spun

and the world was

reduced to a blur

colors, faces, music

blurred before her

eyes and she spun,

to remain relevant and

alive to remember

the loss of control, she

closed her eyes and

spun, faster. To feel.

To breathe. To announce

with her body  "I AM HERE"

For a moment-suspended

in time she wasn't. She

was spirit. Laughing to her

own private joke. Spinning. Losing

control. She embodied the world.

Her arms flung out embracing

life and freedom.

Just for a moment. She didn't

feel so alone as she spun

faster and faster

We Weren't Bound to Stay in One Place

Thunder crashed.
A quick glance told me everything I needed to know and in that instance we decided, "why the hell not?"

I sprinted out to the trampoline, clambered up the ricktey sides and began to jump.  Rain crashed down, two best friends jumping, screaming, giggling, and hugging.

In that moment, we were infinite.

Short of breath, I thunked down on mat with a bounce and took a deep breath in of the Mississippi air, heavy with humidity and the promises of the future.  On the eve of our high school graduation my best friend and I spent the night gossiping, reminising and dreaming of things to come.  Lying there in the dark, we promised it would always be like this, no filters--just pure honesty. 

That summer we would get tan at the beach...
One day I'd come back and we'd drive around and get coffee and sing John Mayer and Train...
One day we'd find beautiful smart boys that treated us the way we should...
One day we'd grow old and get married and be each others "Cheif Bridesmaids"...
One day we'd conquer our fears and live out our dreams...
One day we wouldn't feel so alone, like the other was the only one who would ever understand...

As I shifted my weight the springs beneath me squeaked; it was a careful balancing act, too much movement would knock the other person over. I was always a fan of the double bounce, both people jumping in sync and vaulting higher than you ever could on your own.

Lots of things in life begin that way, a split-second decison followed by an eager reckless start, the heady rush of adrenaline, promises you intend to keep--promises you promise you'll keep ; but life doesn't wait around, the world spins madly on.

After a while you realize that you aren't jumping in sync anymore and you don't try as hard to make it work. It doesn't mean you don't love jumping any less, but perhaps other things have replaced the sharp intake of breath, the barefeet, the catharsis of feeling free and light. 

Perhaps sooner than we expected someone else comes and fills that void and you start the same jump with them. The same but different, because now we are a little older, a little wiser, a little less dependent; you trust in new ways--strange yet refreshing ways. Things begin to happen that we never thought would happen and we aren't there to share them like we promised we would, but it isn't a bad thing.

We look up and life is happening all around us. I think we just have to learn to keep jumping, to not be afraid to fall off or out of sync, but to get back on and keep trying. One day we will get there (wherever the hell "there" is) as long as we remember our first leap, together.

She's Only Happy in the Sun

"Protect your heart" he said to me, "the world is a cruel place."

I've always lived carelessly, recklessly to the point of destruction. Well, it caught up to me. I broke. I jumped off one too many cliffs, dangled my heart on too many strings.

What is trust but placing everything you hold dear carefully into another's outstretched hands? Trust is the whispered conversations at 4am when the world is sleeping. It is believing that despite everything the world is a good and just place. I was once made to believe for a brief moment that boys kissed on the forehead and they opened doors for girls. For that fleeting instant, I was happy.  You won. You got me. I let my guard down for a beautiful boy with a smile that lit up the room.

I believe we cling to people who are sincerely bad for us. Nan Goldin wrote, "Even if relationships are destructive, people cling together. It's a biochemical reaction,it stimulates that part of your brain that is only satisfied by love, heroin or chocolate; love can be an addiction."

I spent three years addicted to the 'love' of a beautiful boy. A boy who stole something vital from me; he stripped away my innocence and I was left cold, naked, and defenseless.  I felt I was nothing without his love, approval and affection. So I continued to objectify myself to make him want me; it didn't work. In my attempt to prove my continued love for him, or anger that he didn't want me anymore, I sacrificed core values and lost myself along the way. In a sense this is an apology to you, dear one, you will always be my first love. I know I hurt you and that despite everything, we have too much baggage to ever really try again. I'm okay with that now.  In the past three years we have both grown in separate directions and we don't know each other anymore. Perhaps we never really knew each other as well as we thought. Every John Mayer song belted out of a sunroof since last November has been for you. Entirely too many cups of coffee and journal entries have been spent over angst or love for you. My final betrayal, the last act of immaturity, I did to get back at you, I wanted you to somehow feel everything you had put me through over two years. I apologize. He hurt me in a way that you never did. The magic of our first love, was the ignorance that it will never end.

So now I trust sunshine, good music and sun dresses will make me feel alive again; but my trust is frail. Not only is my trust frail, but I am frail. I'm learning how to love and live all over again. It is going to take a lot of time and patience. I know now the world is a dangerous place, but a glimmer of hope remains that someday a boy will want a girl who can discuss Mubarak and Hobbesian theory with grace.

Here We Go Bluebird

Life. Living. Breathing, in and out. Trusting people. Being loved. Feeling beautiful. Doing things that scare the hell out of you. Waking up and realizing how far you've come. Knowing how far you still have to go. Driving. Singing. Loving. Being rejected. Doing something right for once. Security. Routine. Connection in an isolating age. Just knowing. Traditions. Heartache. Screaming. Dancing without abandon. Playing in the mud. Laughter. Friends. Holding hands. Family. Despite all odds, surviving. Waking up and looking in the mirror and saying, "I can do this." Embracing who you are; the weird bits, the crazy bits, the insecure bits, the embarrassing bits and all those other bits that don't quite make sense but when crazily meshed together make you, you.

I met a boy (I know, I know). This boy doesn't like the words "I don't know." He thinks they are a cop-out, because if you really took the time to figure it out, you do know, you always know. It might be hard to admit to yourself, or that you never stopped to consider that the answer was lying right in front of you all along; but you always know. 

Relationships are messy. Friends, Boys, Family. Trying to figure out who you are, while trying to love these people. When things fall apart (as they inevitably will) and you begin to dissect layer by layer everything that went wrong you find that there is never just one answer:  anger, confusion, love, insanity, stability, hopes and dreams, revenge, heartbreak and so many more.  They all intertwine and I've begun to realize its all part of living, breaking down to nothing and building yourself back up, each time adding experiences, new ways to look at life. Life is hard, but never look at life and everything it has given you; good, bad, infuriating,confusing or just plain weird and say "I don't know." Because at that point, we stop growing and learning; we stop living. 

even the stars hideaway

As I sit in my favorite alcove in the Starbucks above B&N, I watch as red leaves swirl majestically to the ground dancing on their way to land, rather crunchily on the ground.  The yellow and orange leaves still holding firmly to the branches of the tree,  reluctant to leave (pun!) their home.  But everything changes and tomorrow when I come back a gust of wind will have had its way.

Beyond the smiles and laughter. Beyond the air of self confidence and happiness. There is me:  A hint of perfume in the night, spoonfuls of peanut butter, driving to contain myself, driving to lose myself, dancing without abandon because sometimes it feels so good to just let everything go. I am not invincible. Within me there is doubt all of the time. Solitude is preferred. You can't take more than two hot showers in a day to stop the madness; that isn't acceptable. I think too much; I talk too much; I talk too much about what I think. I'm not always proud of myself.

I have always been a middle person. Clinging to those at the top but always falling solidly somewhere in the middle. Nothing spectacularly amazing or destructive will ever come of me. I work hard; I work really hard and I've always ended right up in the middle.

So this is me screaming at the top of my lungs. I am not okay.
I'm not fine.
I'm not right. 
I want to be rain that tastes like wine.

It is a different world, a world where leaves change colors and it gets cold before December; a world where, despite how much I want to believe it, I just don't quite fit in, but then again I certainly didn't fit in Mississippi. Its a world where people don't know that there is a difference between an Oxford and a button down and frankly don't care and, perhaps, I never did either. Although I was born and raised in the South, I never considered myself a southerner, always falling back on the 'my parents aren't actually from here...' line and now living in the North, I find that i don't quite identify with the social norms presented.

Change, however, may be a good thing; a lot of Southern traditions are stuck obstinately in the past; and a lot of Northern traditions refuse to acknowledge there even was a past. Stuck between both worlds gives me perspective; a transition, much like that of the fall leaves.  Some trees choose to keep their leaves green all year long, keeping them close, refusing to let go; to allow for new growth. I've already begun to change colors.

Something scientific having to do with leaf hormones. That is why the leaves change colors. They fall to the ground, turn brown and make terrific crunching sounds.  Perhaps they are there to remind us that right before winter there is beauty and warmth. Or perhaps they, like the rest of us, simply can't survive in frigid temperatures and must do what is necessary to survive.

Because in the spring there will be the promise of new life, green buds shooting up. To give us all something to be proud of.  Even the late bloomers, eventually bloom.