literarylines:

“It’s not easy being quiet and good. It’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over. You don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength.”

— Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

(via letsmeetinourdreams)

existential-celestial:

“Oh, darling, please stay by me. Please stay by me and see me through this.”

— Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

(Source: thelovejournals.com, via little-earth-mother-archived)

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(via creatingaquietmind-deactivated2)

"No long-term marriage is made easily, and there have been times when I’ve been so angry or so hurt that I thought my love would never recover. And then, in the midst of near despair, something has happened beneath the surface. A bright little flashing fish of hope has flicked silver fins and the water is bright and suddenly I am returned to a state of love again — till next time. I’ve learned that there will always be a next time, and that I will submerge in darkness and misery, but that I won’t stay submerged. And each time something has been learned under the waters; something has been gained; and a new kind of love has grown. The best I can ask for is that this love, which has been built on countless failures, will continue to grow. I can say no more than that this is mystery, and gift, and that somehow or other, through grace, our failures can be redeemed and blessed."

Madeleine L'Engle

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farmgirlatheart:

flickr.com

(via paperieandpen)

dankmemeuniversity:

(via letsmeetinourdreams)

9710144:

(via novembertwentynine)

sapphoisms:

“It is a muggy August morning and the air in the room is still. Well over half the year has gone by already, which is a worry. I wanted to make something of myself this year. There’s still time, I think. Definitely some time.”

— Yrsa Daley-Ward, “The Terrible” 

(via creatingaquietermind)

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(via middlenameconfused)

existential-celestial:

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”

— Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

(via letsmeetinourdreams)

middlenameconfused:

“Heart weeps. Head tries to help heart. Head tells heart how it is, again: You will lose the ones you love. They will all go. But even the earth will go, someday. Heart feels better, then. But the words of head do not remain long in the ears of heart. Heart is so new to this. I want them back, says heart. Head is all heart has. Help, head. Help heart.”

— Lydia Davis

a very long, and a very deep, personal update

I’ve been walking around for the past week in a terrible funk.  But funk isn’t even the right word for it – that implies a stasis, and that isn’t the case. Not really. I’ve not done a lot outwardly, but inwardly, my emotions and thoughts have been all over the place. Yesterday, I opened my old tumblr (which is partly why I’m going to put this post up on there, once I’m done writing it), and I was amazed.

I’ve spent the last year, or year and a half, in a flurry of activity and productivity. Sam moving in, and then moving to my hometown, taking care of Gram during her breast cancer last fall and writing her book for Christmas, and then Sam and I’s engagement and doing all the wedding planning. Right after our wedding (literally a week or two) I started the house hunting process, and we bought a house and moved in, and this summer did all the things that one does right after buying a house, and Gram moved in as well, and we had a miscarriage in the middle of all of that (found out I was pregnant the weekend after we moved in, and then miscarried a month later), and my brother has been in and out of the hospital all summer and fall, and then Gram was sick… and then she passed away in the middle of September.

Then came profound grief – the deepest grief I’ve had yet in my life, as she was like a best friend and a mother to me, and for the last year, someone I oriented my life around to care for her in any way that I could, and then she was gone – so that grief was profound and shattering. Since then (all of three weeks), there has been no major life “project” I’m letting myself be absorbed by. Oh, there are plenty of candidates, and I suppose I’m starting to get the itch to get absorbed again in outward action (rearranging the house to make it Sam and I’s, instead of Sam, Gram and I’s; many large work projects; finding a new church; working on my relationship with Sam; working on my relationship with my mother and brothers.. this list of things I consider ‘projects’ is telling, isn’t it?)

But, the last few weeks, without the constant flurry of activity, I’ve felt like this lost part of myself has emerged. The inward self.

And I say lost because – reading through just a little of my tumblr (the tumblr I abandoned coincidentally a year and a half ago…), all the emotions and thoughts I’ve been feeling recently, they’re all here. In quotes and pictures and small journal entries like this.

It’s been a startling reacquaintance. “Oh, I forgot who you were, and that you must have been lurking about here” and I’ve shifted things around inside myself and given all these thoughts and emotions room in myself again.

As someone in a highly technical field, surrounded by highly technical people, who live very structured, ordered lives… I’ve felt like this couldn’t possibly make sense. And I’ve struggled to give voice to it, but reading all these quotes, made me realize, these emotions are normal. Lots of people feel these things. Feel so deeply.  

I suppose I ought to try to define them – “I know you have seen things you wish you hadn’t. You have done things you wish you could take back. And you wonder why you were thrown into the thick of it all – why you had to suffer the way you did. And as you are sitting there alone and hurting, I wish I could put a pen in your hand and gently remind you how the world has given you poetry and now you must give it back.”

A quote I found on my tumblr, something that represents one of the branches of all this inward stuff. The coping with suffering. The acknowledging of pain. That life is full of Hard Things, and some of those Hard Things, while bearable and ‘figureoutable,’ are not solvable. They do not always resolve. Death and Grief are one of those Hard Things. But why should Death be a Hard Thing?

It is because (I think, I do not know) life is painful, life is suffering. There is never a moment, not truly, not really, when you can pause and step back from your life, and look upon it, and say, “I have done everything I came here to do. I have lived my purpose, and I am no longer needed. All those who need and depend upon me, do not need me anymore. All those people I love and care for are content and safe and happy.” And so, no matter when Death comes, whether it is as 3-year-old, or a 30-year-old, or a 90-year-old… it comes too soon. The too-soon-ness of Death is what makes it a Hard Thing. And I think that’s what we grieve. Too soon, too soon, I wasn’t ready, I need them still.

I’ve spent the beginning of the week having these conversations with some of my technical friends. Why is there such suffering? Why does God allow such pain and suffering in this life? How does one continue to live in the face of Hard Things? I have answers. Or at least, my current worldview hypothesis. If I didn’t have one, I don’t think I could continue going on with the business of living.

Then anger. That has been a major thing I’ve dealt with. “he tells you that no man can live up to the one who/ lives in your head/ and you tried to change didn’t you?/ closed your moth more/ tried to be softer/ prettier/ less volatile, less awake/ but even when sleeping you could feel/ him travelling away from you in his dreams/ so what did you want to do love/ split his head open?/ you can’t make homes out of human beings/ someone should have already told you that.”  

A poem written by warsan shire, dealing with romantic relationships, but it applies to all relationships, and describes the anger I’ve felt. I would say I existed in a state of anger from when Gram was sick, until maybe a few days ago, when I emerged. It was like being trapped underwater. All my relationships – family, friends, acquaintances – all of them I viewed from the perspective of what I wanted from them, maybe even what I needed from them. I held all these expectations over each one of them, and of course, of course, of course they did not live up to those expectations. Because those expectations were based on a faulty premise. That they existed as individuals, only in relation to me. I didn’t consider, didn’t even think to consider they were dealing with their own Hard Things, which may or may not have anything to do with me, and they had a life outside of their relation to me. I suppose occasionally I thought about it, but not really.

I was angry. I felt alone in my Hard Things, and I was very, very tired of carrying all these Hard Things, and acting like it was all okay. Even though, some of these Hard Things, no one had asked me to carry. And wasn’t their expecting me to be ‘okay,’ the exact same thing I was expecting from them? Sam points this out to me often. Almost every single argument we have, he points out my double standards. I expect so much from him, and I get so upset when he does anything I think is ‘wrong,’ and even more upset if he doesn’t acknowledge he’s done anything wrong…. but if he does the same to me, I do not accept it and I become enraged.

Like I said, I emerged from this anger a few days ago, and it feels like I’ve come up for air, and I’m looking down at this ocean of rage I had lost myself in and am just now realizing how selfish it was. And, weakness. I wish I could say that I emerged from this anger, because I discovered this inner strength to muddle through on my own, and to not expect things from others, and to seek to give more than to receive.

But that’s not the case. It’s more of an exhaustion. I do not have the emotional energy left to hold expectations over anyone. It’s a release. Namaste. Live and let live. Accept others as they are, because I am too tired, maybe? Or maybe not tired, just done with that. Like throwing yourself over and over at a locked door, and then finally realizing this locked door is just not going to open, and so why don’t you just let it alone, and divert your attention elsewhere. That’s not a particularly satisfying conclusion. But, maybe it’s like a difficult math problem. Turn away for a little while, and maybe the next time you approach it, the answers will come. “Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms… Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them… Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

So. Suffering. Anger.

There has also been a lot of romantic yearnings in the last few days, that started simply and honestly, as pure lust. In this year and a half of frantic energy, even while so many things I was giving my attention and energy to, were related to committing to Sam in marriage – we also grew far apart during that time. Which is very ironic and painful to admit. At different points toward this year, we both talked about our engagement and marriage in wonder. “Can you believe we’re engaged?” “Can you believe we’re married?” And we would laugh self-consciously. But all our sexual and romantic energy seem to slowly dry up, until now I feel it’s just a pile of ash, that I am not sure how to re-spark. And it’s mostly my fault. I knew what I was doing, “I’m busy, I’m tired, we don’t have the money, we don’t have the time.” A constant refrain, over and over, that killed the spark of romance and sexual tension.

But the last few days, I can feel the desire rising in me – and to be honest, it came from a place of wanting to escape. My tendencies are towards control and aggression, and oh my, that’s a marvelous outlet and escape. But I suppose, any type of sexual activity one is pulled towards, is a marvelous escape. Perhaps that’s the mystery and power of sex, and why mankind has spent thousands of years enthralled by it.

Unfortunately, all this reawakened internal energy did not naturally go towards Sam, although I did try to direct it towards him, and am not opposed to doing so. But he has rebuffed me. In my ignorance, I thought if I kept initiating, he would eventually reciprocate. After our argument last night, it became clear that whatever I was doing was not only not going to be reciprocated but was making him actively unhappy and resentful.

And finally, there’s a feeling of being trapped. “And this urge to run away from what I love is a sort of sadism I no longer pretend to understand.” I am married. I have a house. I am further into my career path. All these things mean I do not get to go on First Dates, and Move, and Change Careers. I do not get to direct this restless energy I have, this energy that has driven me into all sorts of radical life changes, I do not get to direct it into upending my life and starting over. Trying again. Redefining myself. So, where does the restless energy go? That is something I do not have an answer for either.

Framing it as simply a ‘restless energy,’ makes it sound too positive. But I don’t think it’s a necessarily positive force. It is self-destructive, I think. But it’s not a very strong self-destructive force, as the evidence of my current life proves. All the changes I’ve made in my life, all the experiences I’ve had, have led to so many good things, and I am thriving. Really, I am.

I think perhaps, at this point in my life, the only thing I can do with this restless energy is to ride it out. Or let it make changes inwardly, rather than outwardly, and that might be the whole point of this post.

There’s all of that then.

And as I’m describing them – Suffering, Anger, Romantic Frustration, and Restlessness – I’m struck by how very common they are. Aren’t these just the typical menu of Tough Emotions that we all sample, continually, throughout our lives?

I’ll end on a positive note. I felt more normal yesterday, and even today. I feel a desire to make a to-do list, and to do All the Things. Those projects of mine… the house, and work stuff, and relationship stuff. I have a desire to do. Which is good. It’s the first step anyway, because I had no desire to do anything for the last week….

But I do want to keep this internal stuff going. I don’t want to let myself be overwhelmed with Doing and Productivity and Mundane Life Chores, that I don’t have time to continue to tease out this internal life. And I will fix things with Sam.

wordsnquotes:

“May flowers grow in the saddest parts of you.”

— Zainab Aamir
(via themotivationjournals)

(via little-earth-mother-archived)

Good morning.

You’ve been playing this open-world game for a while now.

Complete a mission today.

Gain some new powers.

Lin-Manuel Miranda