I don't know who I am without you...

It is when I'm stressed beyond all sanity
that I hate my singleness the most
Because I start to believe that
I am all alone in the world and no one has my back
And my brain is to fried to convince me otherwise
So I need to be held
Tightly and for a long time
As a physical reminder
That I am not alone

Don't tell me I'll be fine...

Well I've been here before
Sat on the floor in a grey grey room
Where I stay in all day
I don't eat, but I play with this grey grey food

Desolé, if someone is prayin' then I might break out,
Desolé, even if I scream I can't scream that loud

I'm all alone again
Crawling back home again
Stuck by the phone again

Well I've been here before
Sat on a floor in a grey grey mood
Where I stay up all night
And all that I write is a grey grey tune

So pray for me child, just for a while
That I might break out yeah
Pray for me child
Even a smile would do for now

'Cause I'm all alone again
Crawling back home again
Stuck by the phone again

Have I still got you to be my open door
Have I still got you to be my sandy shore
Have I still got you to cross my bridge in this storm
Have I still got you to keep me warm

If I squeeze my grape and I drink my wine
Coz if I squeeze my grape and I drink my wine
Oh coz nothing is lost, it's just frozen in frost,
And it's opening time, there's no-one in line

But I've still got me to be your open door,
I've still got me to be your sandy shore
I've still got me to cross your bridge in this storm
And I've still got me to keep you warm

Warmer than warm, yeah

                                                 -Damien Rice

curl up with a book...

You get a little moody sometimes but I think that’s because you like to read. People that like to read are always a little fucked up.

— Pat Conroy

we give the best of our hearts uncritically - to those who hardly think about us in return...

I
HATE
THAT
YOU
AREN'T
HERE
(x2)

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.

— Dwight Eisenhower

It's raining harder now...

Standing outside in a thunderstorm
she could cry and the tears would just mingle
with the rain pouring down her face
no one would know
instead she runs through the rain
like a little girl
the cool water washes away all the adult problems
that weigh her down
when she's done she takes of her shoes
and walks home barefoot through the wet grass
the sun peeks through the clouds
and the storm passes

What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created?

This speech was given by Robert F Kennedy over 40 years ago.
The issues he speaks on are still issues today.
Nothing has changed in 40 years.
Humanity reeks of failure.

---------------------------------------

This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.

Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.

No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.

Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.

"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs."

Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.

Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.

This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.

I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

Is this what an existential crisis feels like?

who am I? what am I doing? is this my life? am i happy? what is missing? what are my dreams? how do i achieve them? am i a good person? do people like me? am i kind? do i show love? am i important to anyone? what does 'sweet' mean? why doesn't overanalyzing help? how do i break my bad habits? am i wasting my time? do i understand anything? am i good enough? will i make a difference? is is worth it? do i make good decisions? will i be alone forever? am i stuck? am i living up to my potential? what is my potential? how can i help others reach their potential? what are my boundaries? how do i protect my heart? do you think of me? do you miss me? am i good at what i do? can i achieve excellence? do i know God? am i in love with Him? do i live with passion? what is enough? can i be content? who am i? 

Three Passions

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the
longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of
mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither over
a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of
despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would
often have sacrificed all the rest of my life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought
it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering
consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable
lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in
mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have
imagined. This is what I sought, and though it may seem too good for human life,
this is what—at last—I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the
hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to
apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A
little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens.
But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my
heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a
hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain
make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I
cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if
the chance were offered to me.

By Bertrand Russell

Whatever the path You've chosen for us,
help us to be sure footed upon it.

All we can do is keep breathing...

He asked me if there was some other issue I wasn't telling him about
of course there is another issue, but it has nothing to do with him
in fact, I'm perplexed by the fact that he assumed it was about him in the first place
I guess we are all a little insecure sometimes

The issue is that I've felt overwhelmed every day for the last two and a half months
that i just barely get through each week
always running behind trying to catch up
hanging on by a thread

Now a huge part of my life is changing
and I have no control over it
and I know I can't keep going like this
but don't know what to change

So I'm scared
and I wish you could see
that I'm coming close to falling apart
and it has nothing to do with you

why can't you see me

With tired eyes, tired mind, tired soul...

February kind of just happened to me
It arrived with a snow storm, had me struggling and spinning, and left me reeling from the impact.

I think I cried most days in February
Sometimes tears of joy (as I watch my friends get their happily ever after)
Sometimes tears of sadness (as i anticipate goodbyes)
Sometimes the feelings of being overwhelmed simply spilled out

Everything was so much more than I anticipated
My life is not sustainable
As I look back on the hopes I had for myself this year, they are not part of my life
I'm just surviving
Someone told me I'm not the same this term

There needs to be change

Big decisions lie ahead
But I need stillness in order to make them
Which I don't know how to find in the whirlwind that is my life

5 more weeks...

At weakness you will find One called strength

Crying on the side of the road while there is a -20 wind chill is probably not the best idea I ever had...

we sure are cute for two ugly people...

I get unnecessarily angry when people talk down to me
I wonder what that means?

Do you feel like you belong...

"I realized its all about location. Your close friends move to different cities and you start to lose touch, but it's not because they don't care about you, it's just too hard. Then when you find that time to get together you pick up right where you left off." -JH

And then a kiss, but more than this, I wish you love...

I started school on Wednesday and since then have been spending every spare moment on homework.
I'm trusting that it will get easier once I get back into it.
Its crazy how accustomed I have gotten to having time to sit around and think. Here I am after 5 days of not having any time to spend on myself and I can't even read because of the noise of all the thoughts spinning around in my head.
That hope for a sabbath might be a little harder to achieve than I thought... but more needed than I realized.

Girl brain...

"Loony or not, girl brain almost always manifests in the absence or maddening silence of a man. Any situation where uncertain possibilities present themselves is an instant opportunity for our ever-active brains to fill in the gaps (naturally as colorfully as possible) until the man acts or speaks, providing us further data to mull over."

Waiting...

Today I spent 4 hours reading in bed... fabulous

Measure in love...

My hopes for 2008...

*Attempt to record at least one thought or idea from each day (either here or in my
 journal). Maybe it’s only a word, maybe a song lyric, a picture, a prayer, anything.

*Go to the gym and eat healthier

*Spend less money on coffee and eating out

*Use your new sewing machine

*Do well in school and enjoy it. Don't just do the bare minimum you need to get a
 good grade but immerse yourself in learning.

*Set aside a sabbath day each week. If you can't do a whole day don't give up, set
 aside half a day or even a couple hours instead.  During your sabbath do not doing
 anything work or school related.

*Stop trying to figure things out on your own, instead fast, pray, and wait on
 direction from God.

*Live a life of honesty and truth. This doesn't just mean not lying, it means being
 upfront with your thoughts and feelings, seeking truth in every situation, and
 seeing the truth that is in front of you.