Forgiveness cannot change the past, but it can enlarge the future. - my fortune cookie

is it possible that if you pretend for so long to have something that you lost, and then you get it back, it is no longer real? can it still be revalidated with love and time? sometimes i wonder.

i have fought so hard yet now i stop and start to wonder what if what i've been fighting for can even exist any more. it saddens me greatly to ask that question. i wish i didn't have to, but i do.

the truth is that i know the answer is no, at least not entirely the way that it was. the way that we were. i've wanted to believe that forgiveness and love would heal everything - that i would be able, through my reaction, to right a wrong i never committed. but that's not really possible. can things still be good, even great between us? yes. can they be as they were before? no.

i had what could pretty much be considered the easiest relationship known to man. for nine months there was nothing - not a blip on the radar, no problems, nothing. there was no need for distrust or questioning. there was innocence.

that doesn't, can't exist any more. but something else can - an older, deeper understanding, if we are ready for it. are we? i truly don't know. only time will tell.

while loving forgiveness cannot return what was lost, it is impossible to find a way forward without it.

I'm coming home, I'm waking you up
In the middle of the night, I'm not giving up
I'm gonna stay til we work it out
We're not going down even if it get's worse
We'll work it out......

i have always refused to compromise when it comes to my plans for my life. Always put my adventures ahead of those i care about. yet now, on a new journey, one i have always wanted to undertake, i find myself torn between the two.

i cannot immerse myself in the journey while he stays at the forefront of my mind, yet i cannot fully fight for him from 4000 miles away. i am caught at a crossroads.

perhaps the decision would be obvious to any other rational human being. because logically, i shouldn't be the one fighting. however, rationality has not always served me well. emotion over logic, passion over reason. that is who i am.

the funny part is that before this all happened, i had come to realize that i would sacrifice my ideas about adventures on my own, my crazy independent streak, if i could have that time with him. and even now, i would still. perhaps that is setting myself up for disaster again. perhaps i have a self-destructive personality. but i know in my heart that i would rather be with him and be hurt than be hurting without him.

loving someone is accepting that they are not perfect, that they are human, and still wanting them.

i know that it is easier for him to bury his feelings and try to walk away than to accept forgiveness and work for this. but i refuse to believe that deep down, that's really how he wants this to end. i learned something when i stepped out on that limb last time. i learned that i love him more than i ever thought i would and that i will fight for him no matter what, even if it tears me apart. there is no turning back now. i will go down with the ship, if that is where it is headed, so be it. i will risk causing myself all of the pain in the world for the chance of a life with him.



and time weaves ribbons of memory
to sweeten life when youth is through
but i would need no memories there
if i could share my life with you........

What's the most beautiful thing you've seen this week?
New green.

last week was rough, and that's putting it mildly. maybe it was that i just really needed a vacation, maybe it was that i haven't had an emotional breakdown in over a year, maybe it was time for my procrastination to catch up to me - who knows, i don't, and i don't care. it doesn't matter now. so, after not sleeping for several days, skipping a test, watching my computer swallow a finished paper whole, and dropping a class, i went home. i'd planned the trip in advance on a whim, i had no idea how desperately it would actually be needed.

i wanted to go home in april for a number of reasons, a big one being that i could get my fix of spring. the thing i really miss living in miami is seasons, so now i try to go home at least four times a year to get a bit of all of them. spring is really important to me, to my health and well being.  it is a reminder to me of the natural order of rebirth. to me there is nothing more beautiful than the sight of new green, when everything is just beginning to bloom and emerge from winter's gray. i love it. i need it. and i got it this weekend.

i spent friday afternoon in the woods. the weather and time of year was perfect - too early for the bugs of summer, too late to get cold fording streams. Emerson said "In the woods, we return to reason and faith." its so true. we don't really have woods here in miami, and i think that's what allows my life to become so unreasonable sometimes. i need the woods. i need seasons. i love my school, but there's no way i can spend more than four years in this city. it messes with your head.

maybe my life has been becoming too old, to repetitive lately. maybe i needed to be shocked out of  it, thrown into something new. beyond the structure of what i "have" to do, how i "have" to take so many classes and "have" to cram so much into the time that i have and "have" to apply to all the prestigious hoo-ha. well, maybe that isn't me, and maybe i needed to be reminded of it. the woods have a way of doing that. maybe that isn't who i am, or who i'm going to be. perhaps i needed to start over. become new again.

recrudesence. rawness. newness. new green. new life.




peace,
jane

last night i dreamt about my first love.

i dreamt that we were friends, that we had lunch and went walking in the woods.

if i could have a wish granted, i'd wish for that dream to be true.


i know that he wasn't really right for me, that he wasn't just the right person at the wrong time, that it never could have worked out. i overcame that a while ago. but he was something else to me, a friend in a time of dire need. perhaps he was just put in my life for those moments to get me through that time, but is it too much to ask to have that friend back? that friend who cared, cared about the earth and about me and who i trusted with so much, who shared his heart and his soul with me for those passing moments? i miss that friend.

take the lover away from me - that i can live with. but the friend, couldn't you leave him? perhaps its my fault that he's gone. who can say for certain? but to have him back, just as that friend, just for a time, would be the sweetest thing I could dream of.





shalom,
jane

forget internships, forget fellowships, forget structure.

i'm going on a journey this summer.

i'm going to hitchike, backpack, hop a train, stay in hostel, surf a couch, work a farm, and i'm going to do it all 4,160 miles from home.

i'm going to alaska, loves.

ever since i found that poster of denali and put it up in my room, i've wanted to go. spend a summer doing whatever the hell i felt like, feel the wilderness, pull a chris mccandless without the dying part. and now it's going to happen, i'm going to make it happen, and I couldn't be more excited.

i love the way life works sometimes :)

there isn't much that really antagonizes me.

but there are some things.

for instance, when people use tools that are designed to help them help other people (change the world, etc) to help themselves. you know, going to a program designed for young social innovators to network and gain resources.......so that they can put it on their resume and further their own advancement.

the older i get, the more i detest and reject things like ambition and competition.

but is it possible to win a victory for those who need one without playing the game?

i don't like sucking up. i don't like climbing over others, clawing my way to the top. i don't like going behind the backs of those who trust me. i don't like compromising the things that are important to me.

i'm a poli sci major who hates politics. ironic, no? i knew that going in. but i also knew that you have to understand the game in order to outwit it..........

........in order to change it.

slowly i learn not to make plans.

perhaps i should know by now that my life comes in unpredictable bursts.

slowly i learn to accept this.

perhaps its time to reject the standards of society and assume my own course.


i dont even see the point anymore in trying to make plans ahead of time for me, because its always a dismal failure. where will i end up this summer? who in hell knows. i don't. i thought i had an inkling and then it went out the window. i suppose theres no point in getting my hopes up for things that I would know about months in advance, because the truth is they won't happen.

is it wrong to feel that going home is not an option?
does it even matter to me if it is?
didn't i give that up a while ago?


i guess the real question is, do I even really want to know where i'm going?

Where do you find the sacred in your life?

I find it in all wild spaces. I believe that everything that is a creation of God is sacred and should be regarded and treated as such. I have always found solace in the woods, but this is more difficult for me now that I live in Miami. If I am away from them too long, I can begin to feel broken. Sometimes when I am seeking peace I can find it simply lying on the campus green in the sunshine, but if I have a more desperate need I go to the ocean to find it. The vastness of the sea creates a great calming presence, and I feel drawn to allow my problems and stress to float out with the tide. And there is nothing like the wind off the sea for cleansing the soul.

I drove to Nashville today to visit my brother, and on the way, I thought a lot about brokeness. How it's all around us, in so many different forms, and how what I want most to do is help fix it - yet I don't even know where or how to begin.

I see it half a world a way, in a land torn apart by anger and bitterness and an endless cycle of revenge, a fight between two peoples who both believe the land is rightfully theirs, neither willing to let go or compromise. It breaks my heart to know of the lives that have been ripped asunder by this endless fighting. I want to go to this land, to meet these people, to be neutral and negotiate, to offer myself as a servant to those in need of healing, but those close to me say the land is too broken, too dangerous, too far gone for it to be worth the risk. But if no one takes a risk to make a stand for what they believe in, how can the healing ever begin?

I see it in my own home, in my father - a man who is but half a man, unable to compensate having lost the person he loved more than the world. Looking at him, the obvious assumption is that he has a severe personality disorder; schizophrenia, perhaps, or Asbergers. Perhaps he does. I am no psychological expert. But what I do know is that he is broken. Horribly broken, and he has no idea. To him, he should be "past" the stages of grief by now, so therefore he must be. He has found himself on a quest to tell people of the power of God to provide physical healing from death and disease, but the truth is that he is the one who needs the healing the most - healing of the soul. If I could carry him through this, take him beyond this endless cycle of denial and anger, I would do so in a heartbeat. But I can't. Part of me believes I need to let him fight his own way through this because there is no other way, while the other part of me cries that to leave him alone is to leave him to ultimate failure and utter defeat.

What can I do? I know I am called to the broken places, but I haven't the slightest idea what to do once I get there.


shalom,
jane

Last night I wrote a new poem.

I haven't written a new poem in ages.

I haven't had real inspiration in ages.

Its very strange, though, that it was anger that motivated me. I haven't been motivated by anger in a long time, and it was kind of frightening, disturbing really, to encounter that side of me.

But he called me a siren.

I am not a person of small conscience, I am generally prone to large guilt trips, and I never manage to hurt someone without feeling equally the pain I have inflicted upon them. So to claim that I did it purposefully, that I meant to shatter him again and again.......that is uncalled for. That is foul, in every sense of the word.

I know what I did to him. I know that he is the way he is because of me. However, even though I know it's no excuse, we were young. Stupid. Extremely misguided. I didn't even know myself well enough to know what I really wanted or needed or felt called to do. And clearly he didn't know me either.

I was never an angel, and I could never really save him from the pit of his despair. He needed much more than me - he needed faith, and he needed to confront what haunted him most, his loneliness, and make peace with it. Perhaps I gave him the path to both. Perhaps neither. Either way, the girl in his stories is not me. Maybe he saw what he wanted, needed to see. But what I've learned is that you cannot pretend to be someone beyond yourself for the sake of someone else, at least not for long, and still be truly happy and healthy.

Although some of that season was wonderful and some was torturous, the biggest part of it was that I learned the importance of identity. So let me tell you, now, about myself:

I am not your fair-haired angel set aside to gather moss
I am not your savior left alone upon a cross
I am not your siren calling you to your grave
Nor am I your helpless damsel waiting to be saved.

So do not look for me on a pedestal for all the world to admire
Do not look for me on a hillside, waiting for the burning fire
Do not look for me in the ocean, crying from the rocks
Do not look for me in a tower, letting down my locks

Once I was what you were looking for, or at least, I tried to be
But that was not the truth, nor will it ever be.

For I am in the fields, and in the trees, and in the sky
I am in the rushing river and the wind that breezes by
I am in everything that is at peace when wild and free
That is all I ever was, and all I ever hope to be

So do not drown me with your worship, do not bind me with your ties
I am not, nor was I ever that goddess in your eyes.


shalom,
jane