need

I wrote the following post yesterday. It was one of those days where I cried big sloppy tears for feelings I couldn't ignore one minute longer. In the morning I cried silently, working away at my desk, and felt better by the afternoon. Last night, I cried loudly, I gave myself permission to really grieve for all these things that have happened in the last year - both my own experiences and those I have born witness to both here and abroad. Today I feel so much better - but I'm giving myself permission to post about the reality of yesterday as a tribute to the 2 year anniversary of this blog. Many people don't understand blogging - they don't get baring your soul to strangers (or loved ones who might read, for that matter). I can't say I totally understand it either. I don't even know who reads this anymore that I might censor my words for if I realized they'd see them. The point is, I'm making peace with my yesterdays, with letting them be, on the page. Two years of yesterdays marked today. It's been a blessing, to say the least.


June 2, 2008
I have far more love in my life than many people I'm sure (and if ever there were cause to quantify, I'm sure far less than others). The point is that it's there, it's present in family and friends and the romantic affection of a few - more than I recognize and certainly more than I know how to draw on when I need it most.

This past year has, in many ways, kicked my heart's ass. As above, I feel I have to post the necessary disclaimer: it has been kicked far less than many others. The pain I know pales in comparison to many, it would be disrespectful to compare it to the loss and the grief that others have experienced in their own hurts. But to me it is real, it is pronounced, it is disorienting. It has bubbled up in a redefinition of family, first by those around me, and then by myself as I tried to make sense of an absolutely new familial landscape. It has been in once again having fallen in love, and then, with an explanation that feels far from valid or to reflect the strength of the love I hope to give and someday receive, having fallen out of it. It has been in the wanting to turn to my pillars of strength during these times, and seeing them withered in the paralysis of their own hurts and life's challenges. It is the ultimate feeling of at times being without the strength of the most important ties of a lover/partner and family.

So I've looked elsewhere for comfort, sometimes demanding it from those who have no responsibility to provide it, or else taking it in bits and pieces, knowing full well the temporary security such offerings provide. Such things, invariably, come to an end. What remains amidst the fractured ties, the mini-flings, the hot-prospect projects, is friendship. There is no lack of wealth therein. And yet in my attempts to escape my grief, I have called on my friends almost exclusively for fun and light heartedness - for small adventures and days of laughing till my stomach aches, rather than the assuredness I desperately seek that if and when the shit hits the fan, I won't be alone. I have rarely let myself cry to them, or even in front of them, the shame of such fractures somehow too great to let the cat out of the bag. Of all my flaws, I think this is perhaps the worst - to not be able to let your guard down to those who have the strength, love and the confidence in you when you need it most.

A bureaucrat's bedtime

Last night I got in bed around 10:30 (later than I should have - I'm still trying to stock up on sleep to fight whatever lingering cold germs are lying around) and listened to music. I've been having a lot of trouble falling asleep lately - it's taking and hour or more when I go to bed at a reasonable hour. Of course if I go to bed around midnight, I can drift right off - but that doesn't really mesh well with my 6:00 a.m. wake up (which then gets pushed to 6:15, 6:30, a shower, back to bed for 15 minutes (the only thing that gets me to get out of the shower - the promise of my pillow), frantic bathroom time and a cobbled together lunch before sluggishly dragging myself to the car and making my way to work...late). As much as I'd like to be able to get by with six hours of sleep, I can't.

I'm in between books at the moment and also haven't yet replaced my bedside table light bulb (this is the kind of thing about myself that drives me crazy. It's an Ikea light - so it needs a special Ikea bulb, but you really need to be in a certain mindset to take on Ikea. I haven't been in that zone in quite some time, so the burnt out bulb sits on my catchall, gathering dust, and I remain in the dark). Though reading is sometimes a good tool for easing myself into a dreamstate, right now it requires getting out of bed to turn off the room's main light - which wakes me right up.

Last night I tried music - and while it didn't put me to sleep (ipod head phones are not actually all that comfortable when lying on your side) it was a nice way to end the day. I listened to a bunch of Sufjan Stevens and fell into my favorite prayer, "help me help me help me help me." In her book Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott says her prayers go one of two ways, "help me help me help me help me" -or- "thank you thank you thank you thank you." That's my faith more or less summed up to a tee (or should it be 'T'?).

I know there are a number of reasons why I can't fall asleep when I want to - but yesterday one of them was the impending doom of the next day, and facing all the things I'd failed to do in the sun cycle coming to a close. After a truly frustrating day at work and a bout of procrastination and intimidating paperwork with no end in sight, it was kind of all I could do to throw it out there and ask for help.

Sometimes I forget that I face these paralyzing limitations of self for that very reason, so that I know no matter what, I'm never going to be able to do it on my own. I forget that when I've exhausted my own avenues for help I can throw that prayer out there, and somehow know it's going to get done.

When I finally turned off the music and felt my body settle into the moments before the inevitability of sleep, I had what I needed to get me out of bed in the morning, and take it all on again.