Onward

I just looked at my blog, like the stats and archives. I had over 60 views on my last post. That's so crazy. Also, I realized I've written at least one post every month for over a year now which is also pretty crazy. I've never done anything so consistently for so long! This is a really big deal for me!

I started this blog as a personal exercise more than anything. I wasn't really even sure I wanted to share it with anyone but I felt overwhelmed with the desire to be real with people and unashamed of how I think. I started posting it on all of my social media sites; Twitter, Facebook, even my Pinterest has a link to the blog. All I wanted was somewhere I could post my thoughts on the rare occasion that they complete themselves. And if someone gets something from reading them then that's awesome! If I'm the only one who reads them like a million times over, that works for me too.

For those of you who do read, you rock. You also are very likely quite insane, but I love you for that.

Little update! I hope to launch my "Study in Happiness" for real this time. I'm in a really good place for it and I have a few ideas of how to get it going. I would hope to incorporate videos and start a Youtube channel staring the beautiful people I come across but that's not my strong point. If you're reading this and you have skills with a camera/editing software, hit me up! I would love a partner in this adventure.

Thanks again to you crazy people who read these random, sometimes insane or depressing posts.

To make my day, leave a comment in response to one or more of these questions:
1) How would you describe the color green?
2) How would you describe the taste of water?
3) How would you describe how it feels to laugh, and what it sounds like?

One Year Later

Today marks exactly 1 year and a week since I left my engagement ring on my fiancé's dinning table and walked out of the apartment we were going to call home. And a year since we officially canceled the wedding. I thought,  in all honesty, that I'd be either in some foreign country creating a new identity for myself and completely forgetting everything and everyone in the States, or living a happy, normal life in the city I called home, serving in my beloved church and being a nanny for years to come. 

The last thing I expected was feeling pressured by my ex to avoid him at all costs. I did not expect to feel uncomfortable in my own church, or that I wasn't welcome to be with his family. I wasn't expecting my heart to burn with such hurt and anger that my body literally gave out, leaving me partially unconscious on the floor or shivering on the couch with fevered chills on numerous occasions. I did not expect to be so afraid of seeing him just walking down the streets that I needed to run away, move out of state.

I didn't have any real expectations when I decided I would not marry him. Except just that, not marrying him. But turns out that humans aren't naturally forgiving and civil. In fact, they are quite rude and intolerant of things that could cause them discomfort. So when you end a relationship,  that person tends to have a strong desire for you to not exsist.

The thing is, they do exsist and will continue on exsisting as long as you do. Your identity is now tangled up in theirs even though all other ties to them have been severed. I guess I thought I could move on and pretend it didn't happen. Or at least pretend that it wasn't a big deal. But you can't rip out a chapter in a book and expect to know the whole story.

I'm very glad I have not been married the past 10 months. But that man left scars in my heart that will forever ache for him. I hope one day I can enjoy irises and daffodils without thinking about the bouquets he always made for me. I hope that I will grow out of this fear he instilled in me of being fully myself. I hope that one day I will be able to trust a man when he says he loves me.

My dearest friend told me one night, just weeks before her own wedding, "God doesn't make you go through anything he thinks you can't handle. That means he thinks you're pretty strong." When I woke up on the floor of my apartment after blacking out from the pain,  I thought I would die. I wished it. I did not believe I was going to survive.  But here I stand, a year later.

I still cry about it, I still think about him randomly and feel the ache of his absence, but I survived.

God has been putting the shards of my heart carefully back together. I hate God for thinking I was strong enough to handle that but... I guess he was right, yet again.

I Saw

More than ever I am learning that I am a total and complete freak.
Of course I've known this for some time but it wasn't until recently that I realized what level of weird I've become. I was hanging with a guy that I just recently met, we were driving home and I looked at him, then at the road, then at him, then I just exploded on him a full on profile of himself I'd put together from observing him and his life, from his tattoos to his smoking habits.

It's one thing to notice things, and a whole different thing to actually say them out loud.

I've never done that before. Just laid it all out there. That's not normal. And it put me in a very vulnerable position because even though it was his life story strung out in the air, it was my heart that opened up to read it. I realized in that moment that observation reveals as much about the observer as the observed. His response kind of sent me reeling. He was actually impressed rather than freaked out. He thought it was quote, "awesome". I sat in this guy's car and basically told him "I've known you for a week but I know what your life has looked like for the past 10 years." And all he said was "that's pretty cool that you picked up on all that stuff." 

I felt like Sherlock Holmes when John simply says "That was amazing". Sherlock is right when he said "That's not what people normally say". Not many people like knowing they can be read like the cover of a book, even fewer people enjoying hearing what they're "book cover" has to say about them. Most people say something like "that was weird" or look at me like they're taking notes for a restraining order. 

I've never not been thought of as a freak. In my head, I loved him as a dear friend from that moment on simply because he found me to be interesting rather than overwhelming. My best friends accept that I'm a freak and find my oddities confusing if not entertaining.  But they still see them as odd. To him though...I wasn't. There's a safety in that which I have nowhere else in this world.

"Sherlock Holmes: When I met you for the first time yesterday, I said "Afghanistan or Iraq?" You looked surprised.

Dr John Watson: Yes. How did you know?

Sherlock Holmes: I didn't know, I saw. ..."

Writing Prompt: He Had My Name Written All Over Him

 Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump; the beat of my heart syncs to the pulse of my steps on the forest floor. My legs can hardly keep the pace but my head pushes forward. Speed is on my mind. Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump. I hear nothing beyond the sound of my ever quickening breath and the pounding of my heart. I've been running for what seems like forever but I can't stop, I can't let them catch us.

Us!

The entire world grinds to a neck snapping halt. I can't breath but it's not because of the sprinting. "Zach!" I gasp and fall to my knees. I was so focused on getting away I didn't even check to see if he was still behind me. As I shudder on the forest floor, I can feel his absence like a cold fog slowly engulfing me, sapping my energy and my will to move. I feel like I'm 100 feet underwater as the pressure of loss constricts my chest and throat.  My eyes begin to burn opening a flood of tears and uncontrollable sobs. I weep with every part of my being.

Time aches by and I realize the sun is setting. I have to find shelter for the night. My instincts kick in as I gather myself off the ground. Water, warmth, and protection. I see my hands pulling me through the trees and feel my body being propelled by the need to survive. I am my own shadow; lifeless, meaningless, lost.

As the last dot of light flutters off the forest floor I am able to light a small fire. The advantage to thick foliage is a lack of visibility.  It's also the greatest down fall as I hear creatures scurry around but can't see anything. The leaves all seem to have sprout wings and began their new life in the night.

I sit unresponsive to the buzz around me. Every inch of my body is heavier than bricks. I can barely keep my eyes open as I stare into the crackling fire.
As I drift off into a restless sleep I see his face in the flames. Zach, sitting across from me. His ruffled red hair and bright blue eyes. His little freckled face looks... distorted. My eyes snap open and my whole body lurches as though I've been shot with lightning. "Zach!" I scramble to my hands and knees and crawl around the fire. Tears stain his rutty face but he won't respond to me. He just stares at me. His eyes seem so full of fear. "Zach, what happened? I thought they--" He raised his hands and stared at his arms, mouth gaping with horror. I faltered. It wasn't until that moment that I realized he was covered with cuts. They look like some sort of pattern. I looked closer and nearly gagged. He had my name written all over him. Some carved straight into his skin others scrawled it what looks like a mix of blood and ink. "What did they do to you?"

The Wall

It has been quite a while since my last post. These past months have been nothing if not strenuous. Certainly they've been filled to the brim with beautiful memories that I will cherish forever but they have taken a toll on my soul.

As I sit here now just taking it all in ... I feel heavy. It's a freeing kind of weight though.

For months now I've been trying so hard to : make sense of it all, plan my life, motivate myself, heal myself, correct myself, be more, do more, constantly form myself into what I want to be.
.But I can't do that.
Nothing is in my direct power. I can not make a single thing happen on my own. And I guess it just took a year of incomprehensible circumstances for me to realize I need to start learning what it means to be powerless.

In all seriousness, having no idea what to do, how to do it, or when you should start, simply SUCKS. I've found when I don't know what and don't know how exactly to figure what to do, I do nothing. I had high hopes for my time in Salt Lake City; healing, growth, transformation. But in reality it has been me running. Running away physically, yes, but even more I've been running away emotionally.

After we broke the engagement... I was truly a mess. I cannot express to you just the intensity of emotions I felt in the weeks and months that followed. I ... I found that a breaking heart is not just an emotional ache. More than once I found myself curled in a ball on the couch literally unable to move while I shook uncontrollably with what felt like fever chills. There is    no  way    to process that kind of pain. It was terrifying. Emotions, I decided, were not worth becoming crippled. So I shut it off. Everything. Any deep feeling weather good or bad was off limits. I could practically draw you a picture of the huge, thick wall I'd built within myself.

This wall? It's still there. I can see it. There's cracks in it now but I'm still unable to level it. The very worst part of this wall is I've put it between God and I. Sometimes, I feel him reaching through the cracks, asking, pleading that I join him again. And for a moment I reach too but then I'm stricken with fear and I retreat back to my dark corner which I've deemed safe. "I can't hurt like that again," I tell myself. "If I go that deep again my body will give out. I won't survive."

I've been trying in my own power to demolish this wall but I might as well be using wet noodles in place of jackhammers with as much as I can do. I can't say I know how to make the transition from pasta to wrecking balls but... in all my travels these few months I think the biggest thing I've learned is how to start feeling again.

Awe, wonder, home-sickness, love, friendship, loneliness, unsure, confidence, joyfulness, fun, connection.

God, here's a crack in my wall. Grab my hand and don't let me go. I'm going to resist, I'm so scared but I want to be with you in the high places and the low places. As long as I am with you, my feet will always have a place to stand and my hands will always have yours to hold. Bring me out of this self made dungeon! I want to see the light of your garden again. HOSANNA!

The Benjamin Button Effect

I saw a picture today of one of my graduating class mates and they seemed much more grown up than when we graduated high school nearly 2 years ago. And I suddenly felt that I haven't grown at all. In fact I feel almost younger than I was then. Some would say "lucky you!" But this isn't young in the good sense, like feeling invincible and full of nothing but dreams and potential. This is young in the sense of inexperienced, unmotivated, self-centered, lazy, slacker, with no career in site.

When I graduated high school, I thought I knew what I was doing with my life. I had a boyfriend whom I loved and was going to marry (nearly did), I had at least an idea of what school I wanted to go to (didn't go to) and what I wanted to study (did study for a semester at a school I had never planned to go to, the spring semester after graduation). I was heavily involved at my church (left not 5 months later) and I was part of a campus ministry for international students (no longer had time for when I had started working full-time that fall).

Senior year was a terrible, challenging year for me but at the end I felt I had grown, matured, that my life was going up and out. I had a husband, career, and church ministry all lined up for me to do with my life. I was totally set to jump into the real world. So I took the leap! And, well. Most of you know how that all turned out...

I was almost married, had an apartment, good career prospects and the excitement of growing up with the love of my life. I felt so grown up. But now where am I? Staying in a friend's basement in freakin' Salt Lake City, working a max of 8 hours a week, halfheartedly attending a church, away from my best friends. I have incredible natural beauty just miles away; canyons, mountains, deserts, and yet I spend the majority of my time doing my 3 chores and watching How I Met Your Mother.

I mean, yeah part of the reason I'm here doing what I'm doing is because I'm waiting to hear back about an internship. It would be silly to get an apartment for 4 months, especially since I know I'd never be able to afford it. I can't enroll in school for the fall yet because I don't even know if I'll be on this continent. I can't get a real full-time job because I'll be gone for 3 weeks in May. I'm just waiting, coasting on generosity of the people around me.

I am personally and efficiently made to care for people. I've always been the mama bear of the group, always the one people go to for help. I used to be the caregiver now I'm the one having to be taken care of and I do not know how to play this role. I was self sufficient and now I can't even buy my own groceries. I feel like Benjamin Button, I was born an old soul and some how I'm continually immaturing.

What happened to the Erika who was bold and constantly moving forward? What happened to my servant's heart? Why am I so focused on myself that I'm actually causing more tension and confusion inside me? Who am I? What am I doing? How was I so grown up then and so adolescent now?

Wordless

I have several things that I am drawn too for no obvious reason. The top two are the moon and the ocean. They're like life-long friends to me. There's something... it's like a thunderclap you feel instead of hear. It's so deep it shakes my soul.

The things the Moon tells me motivate me, inspire me to be more and love more. Half my drawings from the last few months have the Moon as the center of attention. And my heart leaps when I see it in the sky, day or night. I imagine stories of what the Moon whispers to the ocean to encourage it to never stop moving. I look at it and yearn for it's beauty. I think of the analogy someone once told me of how we as Christians should be like the moon reflecting the glory of the Sun when we live our lives to reflect the glory of God's Son.

The ocean sits and listens to my unsaid thoughts and sorts through them and helps me understand my own inward battle. I've never lived near the ocean and have spent less than collectively 2 months near it in my entire life time. But I've been in love with it since I was a child. I feel the most like my inner self when I'm in the water. The beauty it holds captivates me, body and soul. The ocean has been to me a perfect representation of God. Depth and beauty, His dependability yet unpredictability, His unyielding lethal power and yet the safest home for the most fragile things. The ocean even has shown me God's playful side.

There are several things I love because they show me God. But none compare to these two. Not only do they show who God is but they speak to my heart. I feel like I've heard God whisper in my ear through these. My love-letters from God.